Furthering the university’s reputation as a leader for education in computer security and information assurance, a team of students from DePaul’s School of Computer Science, Telecommunications and Information Systems (CTI) recently won the Illinois Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition.

The statewide competition pitted teams of computer science students from Illinois universities against one another to determine which team is the best at protecting and maintaining a network infrastructure. During the contest, a team of IT professionals simulated attacks on a network. Each team was scored on how well they defended against the attacks, all while completing normal IT-related tasks and maintenance that a security expert would encounter in the working world.

DePaul’s team took the top honors in the statewide competition, besting teams from Southern Illinois University and Illinois State University and earning a spot in the Midwest Regional competition, held earlier this month. DePaul finished second in the regional competition.

Team members for DePaul were: Vijay Avarachen, Tony Castiglione, Todd Choryan, Leigh Hollowell, Anthony Jacobin, Apneet Jolly, Kevin Nassery and Marcus Taite.

In 2005, DePaul CTI was recognized as a national leader in computer security education by the National Security Agency and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which designated DePaul as a Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance. DePaul is one of only three Illinois institutions and one of only ten Midwestern universities to receive that honor.