Trinity students in transatlantic cyber security challenge

Trinity students, Andrew Jeffery, Chris Underhill, Billy Cooper and Dimitrije Erdeljan, are taking part in a cyber security challenge in Cambridge, 24-26 July, alongside more than 100 students from 25 UK and US universities.

Cambridge2Cambridge (C2C) aims to challenge their computer science skills in a simulated cyber crisis in which transatlantic teams battle against a fictional rogue state to protect the integrity of their ‘nation’s’ digital systems.

Last year, Trinity students Gábor Szarka and Stella Lau won gold in the team Inter-Ace Cyberchallenge, a one-day UK event. Another Trinity computer science student, Dimitrije Erdeljan, won first place in the individual Inter-Ace competition of 2016.

The Cambridge2Cambridge challenge was co-founded in 2015 by Trinity Fellow, Professor Frank Stajano, Head of the Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research at Cambridge, and colleagues at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

This year, a wider pool of students will join those from the Fens and Massachusetts in the three-day competition held in the William Gates Building at Cambridge. The prize giving – more than £20,000 in total – and the finale dinner will take place at Trinity. Cambridge2Cambridge is supported by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre and the Cabinet Office.

Professor Stajano said the competition enabled students to implement skills taught in the lecture hall and to experiment with new and creative ways of combating cyber attacks. The recent spate of attacks underlined the importance of and need for more cyber security experts, he said.

Our event brings together some very smart young people from around the world who are keen on cyber security. They are the future superheroes who will save the digital society. In a decade or two, a number of them will be Chief Security Officers and National Security Advisers. The reason for bringing them together at Trinity for punting and a formal dinner in Hall is to encourage friendships when they’re in their twenties so they can call upon each other later, in the prime time of their security careers. The bad guys are organised, so we have to be organised too.