Tandon in the Media

NYU-Poly Competition Encourages Computer Hacking

This year marks NYU Poly’s 7th annual Cyber Security Awareness Week (It’s okay, nobody else knows about this either). October 21st-22nd, cyber geeks from universities throughout the US will compete  in the Capture the Flag Security Application Challenge held at NYU Poly’s Brooklyn campus.

According to PR Newswire, the competition, created by Poly’s NSF-funded Internet Security Laboratory, promotes “white hat” hacker education to increase the number of people with skill sets advanced enough “to find and correct [institutions'] cyber security vulnerabilities.”

NYU Poly’s “Team Ancat” will compete against Stevens Institute of Technology’s ”Team BedIntruders,” and “Team Lady Gaga Cyber Defense Squad,” as well as “Team Kernel Sanders” from U of Florida. Prizes include Master’s degree scholarships, cash prizes and travel grants to the final competition.

Chances are that about half the freshman at the Washington Square campus haven’t even figured out yet that NYU has a Polytechnic University, but know that the soon-to-be-professional nerds are doing some good: according to their Awareness Week Facebook page, “High Schools from 15 states” have joined Poly’s Cyber Forensics Challenge in a bid to win money for their science departments as well as travel grants to the competition.



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