The World’s Biggest Cyber Security Games Expand To Europe

The world’s largest student-run set of cyber security games, founded 14 years ago by the New York University Tandon School of Engineering, will expand this year to Europe, where it will be hosted by Grenoble INP - Esisar. Based in Valence, France, Esisar is one of six engineering schools of the Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP, located in Grenoble).

Last year the New York University Tandon School of Engineering joined with NYU Abu Dhabi and the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur to widen the annual Cyber Security Awareness Week (CSAW) games beyond Brooklyn, New York, by staging simultaneous final rounds for students in the Middle East, North Africa and India. This year’s CSAW will be held at all four regional hubs on November 9-11, 2017.

Esisar faculty and undergraduate and graduate cyber security students will collaborate with student challenge leads at NYU Tandon to organize the European CSAW finals in Valence, France. The challenges will be open to students from any European country with support for finalists’ travel and accommodation.

Demand for cyber security experts in Europe — where telecom, manufacturing, government, and financial services sectors in particular face mounting security threats — is increasing and will be further driven by implementation next year of the EU General Data Protection Regulation, requiring companies to disclose data breaches.

“Europe needs many more cyber security experts to face current and future threats and to fill what is expected to be a major dearth of skilled defenders,” said David Hely, associate professor of computer engineering at Esisar. “We are pleased to partner with New York University Tandon School of Engineering to bring cyber security competitions of this magnitude to France, and to raise awareness of — and spark an interest in — this critical field among students from all over Europe.”

The team Grenoble INP - ESISAR has been traveling from France to compete in CSAW in Brooklyn for five of the last six years

At Grenoble INP - Esisar, CSAW events will include:

• Capture the Flag (CTF) hacking competition – This cornerstone challenge attracts upwards of 10,000 remote players each year and provides entry- and mid-level problems to solve at the preliminary stage. Students find themselves competing against professionals and amateurs of all ages in the September remote round, but only the best undergraduate student teams qualify for the 30-hour-long marathon of the final round, which is notoriously difficult.
• High School Forensics – The entryway into cyber security, this competition attracts students who enjoy solving puzzles. To encourage newcomers, NYU Tandon students and their mentors developed an online, self-taught curriculum and offered digital workshops. High school students from all over the Auvergne Rhône-Alpes region will participate in finals at Grenoble INP - Esisar.
• Embedded Security Challenge – In the world’s oldest hardware hacking contest, a Blue Team from NYU Tandon designs a target system. Everyone else — Red Teams — will hack it, to mimic real-world attacks. The finalists will present their findings to security experts in this challenging, research-oriented contest. Teams from Grenoble INP - Esisar have advanced to the final round every year since 2011, and have placed in the event four times.
• Applied Research Competition – To participate in what is recognized as the most prestigious Best Paper Award for young researchers, students must submit papers that have already been published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at top security conferences.
• Security Quiz – Held during the finals, this trivia contest challenges students on technical knowledge as well as history and current events. 

This year the best students from the four regions will earn travel awards to participate in final rounds at one of the hubs. There, students will network with top professionals who serve as judges, hear experts address emerging issues, meet recruiters eager to fill what is expected to be a shortfall of 1.5 million cyber security professionals by 2020, and face tough competition from teams from other schools.

The CSAW games were founded in 2004 by NYU Tandon Computer Science and Engineering Professor Nasir Memon and his students. Students continue to design the contests under the mentorship of information security professionals and faculty and run them from NYU Tandon’s student-led Offensive Security, Incident Response and Internet Security (OSIRIS) lab, home also to weekly student-led Hack Night training and student research. 

“We are pleased that Grenoble INP - Esisar, a world-leading engineering school, is participating in CSAW to engage and educate information security students and introduce the contests to students throughout Europe,” Said Memon, who also heads NYU Abu Dhabi’s cyber security program.

“Esisar, which has been a top competitor in the Embedded Security Challenge for several years, clearly appreciates how all of CSAW’s contests have the capacity to introduce a new generation of European students to information security,” said Ramesh Karri, professor of electrical and computer engineering at NYU Tandon. “We couldn’t be more excited about this partnership.”

Winners of the final rounds can walk away with cash prizes, scholarships, and more. Bragging rights are often the biggest motivator — CSAW has become a boldface line for recruiters and university admissions officers.

CSAW welcomes the support of corporate and governmental sponsors. For more information, visit csaw.engineering.nyu.edu, view a video of CSAW 2016 highlights, and follow @CSAW_NYUTandon.

Note: Images from the 2016 CSAW finals at http://dam.engineering.nyu.edu/pages/search.php?search=%21collection1920&k=1c929af56c

About the New York University Tandon School of Engineering
The NYU Tandon School of Engineering dates to 1854, the founding date for both the New York University School of Civil Engineering and Architecture and the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute (widely known as Brooklyn Poly). A January 2014 merger created a comprehensive school of education and research in engineering and applied sciences, rooted in a tradition of invention and entrepreneurship and dedicated to furthering technology in service to society. In addition to its main location in Brooklyn, NYU Tandon collaborates with other schools within NYU, the country’s largest private research university, and is closely connected to engineering programs at NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Shanghai. It operates Future Labs focused on start-up businesses in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn and an award-winning online graduate program. For more information, visit engineering.nyu.edu.

About Grenoble INP - Esisar
Grenoble INP - Esisar is part of the Grenoble Institute of Technology, which brings together six renowned engineering schools, close to the industrial world and open to international exchanges. The Grenoble Institute of Technology is one of Europe's leading technology universities, at the heart of innovation from more than a century. It offers a range of engineering, masters and doctoral courses both in French and in English, driven by world-class research in 37 laboratories, and 6 state-of-the-art technology platforms, developed in partnership with other institutions.
Esisar engineers are trained in Embedded Systems and IT technologies, with a cutting-edge curriculum spanning Electronics, Computer Sciences/IT, Control and Networks. Esisar and the associated research laboratory LCIS host the industrial chair of Excellence Trust which aims at developing innovative teaching and research programs in cyber security. For more information, visit
esisar.grenoble-inp.fr/welcome