NUCCDC

Northeastern University's Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition Team

What is CCDC?

The Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition is an annual red-team vs. blue-team competition between colleges and universities in the United States.

The competition is split into various regions across the US, and our team is part of the Northeast region.

Tryouts

NUCCDC applications for the 2024-2025 season are now open! We are in need of students who are interested in competing with us.

The competition is a cyber defense competition where teams try to maintain a functional corporate network while keeping the network safe from active attackers. In training for the competition, you will learn important Windows administration, Linux administration, networking, and cybersecurity skills that will be useful for your career.

The tryout process involves performing a list of tasks on a virtual machine (VM) that we have provided. There are two VMs: a Windows VM and a Linux VM. You are required to choose only one to complete, but you are free to complete and submit answers for both. For your answers to the tasks, please detail all the steps that you took to arrive to your solution and include screenshots as well. In addition to the tasks, we ask you to briefly describe why you are interested in joining the team. Finally, there is an optional bonus challenge that you can solve as well.

The VMs, bonus challenge, and the instructions can be found here.

Once completed, email a copy of your write up to [email protected]. If you have any questions about the tasks, tryouts, or anything CCDC related, feel free to email us at that address as well. We will let you know whether you have been accepted or not approximately a week or two after the applications close.

We encourage everyone (both undergraduate and graduate students) to try the tasks. Knowing how to Google and being persistent are the keys to success. The tryout itself is an excellent learning opportunity. Don’t worry if you can’t complete all the tasks; just do your best!

Good luck!

Application due date: Sunday, October 20, 2024

Events

NUCCDC invites you to compete in Hivestorm, a virtual cyber defense competition run by the University of Texas San Antonio where competitors secure Windows and Linux machines by removing malware, fixing misconfigurations, and mitigating vulnerabilities. This competition is great for all abilities! You do not have to apply to be on the NUCCDC team to participate in this competition. All you need are some friends who are interested in cyber!

To participate in the competition (and to see all the nitty gritty details), fill out this form by Saturday, September 28, 11:59 pm: https://forms.gle/6yhRVzqKkxT4VFzRA.

The Team

Our team consists of students from many diverse backgrounds and fields of expertise.

Charlie's face
Charlie

  • Our captain
  • Focus: Industrial Systems and obscure Linux things
  • Still runs MacOS Big Sur
  • Secretly wishes they were cool enough to daily drive linux

Simon Bruklich's face
Simon Bruklich

  • Our coach
  • 2022-2023 captain, led team to 2023 CCDC Nationals
  • Focus: Windows
  • Started Windows career on XP circa 2008
  • Prefers Windows Home over Windows Pro

Derek Ng's face
Derek Ng

  • Our coach
  • Focus: Linux

Shannon Assouline's face
Shannon Assouline

  • Focus: Linux

Evan Defloor's face
Evan Defloor

  • Focus: Windows
  • Linux rice enthusiast

Jake Ginesin's face
Jake Ginesin

  • Focus: Linux and Networking
  • Does some stuff with math that you won’t understand
  • Formally analyzed the SCTP protocol

Penelope Om's face
Penelope Om

  • Focus: Linux

Thomas Dwyer's face
Thomas Dwyer

  • Focus: Windows

Incoming Members

Members currently in training to compete next season.

Alumni

Previous team members, captains, and coaches.

Federico Cassano's face
Federico Cassano

  • 2023-2024 captain
  • Focus: Virtualization and Linux
  • Enjoys the Racket programming langugage
  • Likes to write papers in his free time

Ali Bobi's face
Ali Bobi

  • 2023-2024 co-captain
  • Focus: Windows
  • Vim connoisseur

Owen Seltzer's face
Owen Seltzer

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Kyle Sferrazza's face
Kyle Sferrazza

  • 2021-2022 captain, led team to CCDC Nationals
  • 2022-2023 coach
  • Focus: Linux
  • Knows every CLI argument for GNU screen
  • “Our domain controller is running out of battery!”

Max Sebso's face
Max Sebso

  • Focus: Linux

Dennis Giese's face
Dennis Giese

Michael Wang's face
Michael Wang

  • 2020-2021 coach

Matthew Kline's face
Matthew Kline

  • 2020-2021 captain
  • Focus: Windows
  • Can trigger a Blue Screen of Death on anything

Brianna Weinstein's face
Brianna Weinstein

  • Focus: Linux

Fiona McCrae's face
Fiona McCrae

  • Focus: Linux
  • Reinstalled OS on family computer to circumvent parental controls (age 12)
  • Bricked family computer

Samir Elhelw's face
Samir Elhelw

  • Focus: SOC & Windows

Hava Kantrowitz's face
Hava Kantrowitz

  • Focus: SOC & Networks

How do I join?

We’re glad you’re interested in joining the team!

We have an annual tryout process which takes place between the end of September and early November. The CCDC competition starts early in the spring semester. Everyone is welcome to try out – graduates and undergraduates, as well as international students.

You can obtain more information regarding CCDC (including tryouts) by joining our mailing list or sending us an email at [email protected].