The Security and Privacy in Informatics, Computing, and Engineering (SPICE) Center at Indiana University’s Luddy School is excited to announce the formation of IU’s Capture the Flag (CTF) Club this fall. The club will work to build cybersecurity and competition skills for undergraduate students at Indiana University. Where the Cyber Security Club (CSC) hosts speakers and puts on practical labs in cybersecurity skills, the CTF Club will help interested students hone their skills so that they can be successful individual and team competitors in national competitions.
SPICE has a long history of supporting both graduate and undergraduate CTF teams for several years with successful competition experiences at Argonne National Labs, HackIN, and HackTheMachine. The original competition teams were drawn from the class rosters of Luddy’s Cyber Defense Competitions Course, many of whom have graduated to positions in cybersecurity education and defense at other educational institutions and government labs such as MITRE.
Having a dedicated club to bring new students into the world of cybersecurity CTF not only helps those students learn new skills and gaming strategies, it also provides students with practical applications for the educational items that they are learning in their computer science or informatics courses. Being able to see how what they are learning in the classroom can be applied in simulated cybersecurity incidents or attacks is a valuable tool for focus and for job preparation. It also is a valuable advantage as these students graduate and begin their careers. As IoT House manager, Joshua Streiff, says of the CTF initiatives:
“Capture the Flag is an amazing and proven framework for focused academic study and problem-based learning which our team has proven year after year. We have expanded our offerings to students from middle through graduate school, and have worked to use CTF as a pipeline for building our future cyber defenders. Participants consistently find it a fun experience, a way to focus their study, and a game where they can prove themselves to future employers.”
For those interested in the CTF Club or in CTF at IU, please contact Joshua Streiff for more information.