Victoria E. Freile

Staff writer;

Some had to do pushups while others sang the Canadian national anthem.

No matter the task, teams repeatedly paid the toll in order to retrieve their secure information swiped by professional hackers during an annual cybersecurity competition Saturday at Rochester Institute of Technology.

“It’s been a bit of a bloodbath,” said RIT senior Ben Kelley, 22, who is part of the student group that organized the two-day competition.

During the 11th annual event, more than a dozen five-person student teams from universities across New York and Michigan repeatedly attempted to access each other’s operating systems, designed to mimic services a business would operate.

“We hope people take away practical knowledge on how to protect their network of service,” Kelley said.

RIT seniors Brian Seifert and Ben Withnell, both 21, spent Saturday repeatedly violating their competitors’ operating systems. Without giving away their secrets, Seifert said he and his teammates exploited their competitors’ weaknesses to access their secure files.

“We learn more about the viruses this way, in order to defend from the viruses,” he said.

All the while, a team of professional “penetration testers” were hacking into the teams’ programs and watching to see how the students respond.

“We want them to learn how to better defend themselves and to understand the attacks happening,” said J.P. Bourget, the CEO of Syncurity Networks and an RIT alumnus who led the professional team. “Some teams are overwhelmed and others are well-prepared.”

Also, he said, students are learning hands-on lessons that they might not otherwise see until they join the workforce.

Having gained access to all teams’ systems minutes after the competition started Saturday, the professional hackers also are interested in seeing how each student fares. Many of them are recruiting to hire in the spring, Bourget said.

“It’s a constant challenge,” Seifert said as he tapped on a keyboard and eyed a team across the room. “I’m still a beginner, but by combating (others), we can see how they work.”

“There’s always a new challenge, a new problem to solve,” Withnell said. “I love that.”

The competition will continue Sunday at RIT’s Center for Student Innovation.

VFREILE@DemocratandChronicle.com

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