Colfax student among those winning cyber defense contest

A six-member team of Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC) students kept the hackers away during a Cyber Defense Competition recently held on the Iowa State University (ISU) Campus.

Jon Feigl and Alex Dunek of Ankeny; Sean Flattery, David Moreno and Thomas Prescott of Des Moines and Ryan Van Wyk of Colfax came in first place in the two-day competition.

The DMACC team, made up of second-year Information Technology Network Administration (ITNA) students, defeated teams from 10 community colleges to win the competition.

Coincidentally, four of the six DMACC winning team members were on the team that won the same competition last year. Two other DMACC teams also competed in the event this year.
The students spent all day Friday setting up their mini office with a server and other computers. The next day, a team of ISU graduate students and industry professionals did everything they could to try and bring the network system down.

Teams were graded on how well their systems withstood the eight-hours of cyber attacks and rebounded from the attacks.