Outline

The Raytheon Global Security Challenge prize is one of the most advanced to be run on a Global basis The prizes will be awarded at the Symposium on Security Risk, Cybercrime and Critical Infrastructure on Tuesday 6 December 2011 [Link]. There are 25 questions to answer, each getting more difficult (from simple to complex), and there will be a number of prizes on offer.

These prizes will be based on the number of points that are gained on the day of the challenge.

[Symposium Web Site] [Book for the Symposium] [Book for the Meet-the-Buyer Event] [Scottish Cipher Excellence 2011 Award] [Raytheon Global Security Challenge]

Details

The challenge will be held on Monday 5 December 2011, and you can join the challenge at any time during the day, and leave and come back. There will be 25 challenges, and you will work you way through them, and can use any Internet-based tools or sources that you want.

You can either join as an individual or as a team. Register [here].

If you need more details, contact any of the following:

• w.buchanan(at)napier.ac.uk or R.Macfarlane@napier.ac.uk or r.Ludwiniak@napier.ac.uk
• Mike.Just(at)gcu.ac.uk
• George.Weir(at)cis.strath.ac.uk
• i.ferguson(at)abertay.ac.uk
• l.georgieva(at)hw.ac.uk
• ishbel(at)cs.st-and.ac.uk.

Specialist team

The challenge will be run from a top team of cyber specalists, using one of the most advanced security challenge infrastrctures that has been created, and will run by Scott Chase, along with Richard Macfarlane [Web] and Robert Ludwiniak [Web].

Scott Chase is a technical director for Raytheon SI Government Solutions, and actively promotes information operations and information assurance. Along with presenting SI's capabilities to internal Raytheon programs and customers, he helps to develop the next generation of offensive and defensive cybercapabilities for Raytheon, and to recruit and train future cyberprofessionals. For Chase, interest in computers and security came at age 10, when he bought his first computer, a TI–99 clone with 16K of memory, from a discount store. He quickly learned BASIC and wrote programs to show his family and friends. His interest led him to enroll in the computer science program at Florida Institute of Technology. While at FIT, he became involved in student research, helping to start the Software Engineering Society and the Center for Information Assurance with Dr. James Whittaker. After graduation, he stayed on to work at the center full time.

In late 2001, security was becoming an increasingly important problem for companies and the government. However, the dot-com collapse meant few investors were interested in a software startup. Despite the risks, Chase joined Whittaker, former Lockheed Engineer Terry Gillette and others in forming Security Innovation in the fall of 2002, becoming director of security testing. In 2005, SI Government Solutions was created to focus on a growing market — the information security needs of the U.S. defense industry.

Around this time, Chase began collaborating with fellow researcher Herbert Thompson on "The Software Vulnerability Guide." The book, published in June 2005, was designed to teach developers how programming mistakes can lead to security vulnerabilities in software. Chase was excited by the opportunity to sell SI to Raytheon in 2008. "As a small business, we were reaching the limits of what we could do on our own," he said. "With Raytheon's backing and access to government programs, we can achieve success in the information operations domain that wasn't possible otherwise." The team's efforts to defend U.S. cybersecurity were recently featured in "The New York Times" and other newspapers.