UCF C3 Team wins Aviation ISAC Collegiate CTF

September 28, 2021

Two UCF student teams finished 1st and 4th place in the 2021 Aviation ISAC Collegiate CTF Competition on Monday, September 27th. The students are all members of the UCF Collegiate Cybersecurity Competition (C3) Team and members of Hack@UCF. This year’s theme challenged 35 collegiate teams from across the United States with an 8-hour mission to regain control of Terminus Airport and identify the attackers who hijacked an aircraft and hacked into multiple airport control systems. Airline kiosks, backend servers, terminal flight information displays, transportation security, runway lights, aircraft, and other critical systems were compromised in the attack. The 3-person student teams raced to collect evidence to identify the attackers and restore compromised assets by applying everything they’ve learned about Cybersecurity (e.g., password cracking, log and network traffic analysis, computer forensics, malware analysis, and ethical hacking); Intelligence (e.g., OSINT, machine learning); and Aviation (e.g., crew, avionics, drones, air traffic control, airline operations, security screening, airport information systems, and aviation cyber-physical systems) to help Terminus Airport return to normal operations.

UCF’s Knightsec Team took an early lead and remained ahead of other teams throughout the day, winning the event with a total of 2735 points, and receiving the $2100 Grand Prize. UCF’s Cursed Bits Team finished 4th with 1840 points. Participating for UCF were:
• Cameron Whitehead – MS, Digital Forensics
• Caitlin Whitehead – MS, Digital Forensics
• Jeffrey DiVincent – JR, Computer Science
• Matthew McKeever – SO, Computer Science
• Bil Erden – JR, Computer Science
• Christopher Fischer – SR, Computer Science