UNT group ranks among the world's best computer security teams

Warning to area hackers: Before you attempt online computer vandalism, consider that your future adversaries, certain UNT students, are among the best in the world.

The UNT Computer Privacy and Security Lab was recently recognized as one of the best computer security teams in the world, placing second in the Honeynet Project's "Reverse Challenge." This was the CoPS Lab's first time to compete and it was the only academic team to rank among the top five teams. The Cops Lab is a research and education lab in the Department of Computer Sciences with the goal of creating computer security specialists.

Stephen Tate, associate professor of computer sciences, and three computer science graduate students competed in the second annual Honeynet Project competition, which ranks the world's best Internet security teams on the basis of their performance against some of the worst tactics in the current hacker arsenal.

The Honeynet Project is a group of experts in computer security, information intelligence and psychology whose aim is to counter online vandalism. The project offers monthly competitions in addition to the annual event. Its aims are to improve the skills of computer security teams and to promote and encourage the design of better-protected computers and software.

This year's competition pitted teams against malicious software — called malware — that provides hackers with full remote access to a computer. The program attacks one computer and uses that machine to attack other systems via the Internet. The malware used in the competition was recently recovered from a central processing unit violated by a hacker.

Teams, both academic and professional, downloaded the virus onto their computers and then had to isolate, nullify and dismantle the virus to understand what it could have done to their machines. There were 35 competitors in the challenge from a wide range of groups that included security professionals, students, system administrators and interested individuals from Australia, Germany, Italy, Poland, Singapore, Spain and other nations around the world.

Only one other academic team placed in the top 20, the CERIAS Computer Forensics Group from Purdue University.

The prize received by the UNT team was a copy of the professional analysis software IDA Pro Advanced from DataRescue valued at $495 and a signed copy of the Honeynet Project's book Knowing Your Enemy. Both prizes will be used in the CoPS Lab for further educational efforts in the area of computer security and forensics.

The UNT CoPS team members are Vandana Gunupudi, Sandeep Nijsure and Sachin Joglekar, as well as Tate, the lab director.

The CoPS Lab is a research and education lab in the UNT Department of Computer Sciences with the goal of creating computer security specialists.

BY RUFUS COLEMAN rcoleman@unt.edu

Other featured articles in this issue

• Regents confirm Lee Jackson as new UNT System chancellor
• There's a new bird on campus
• Summer graduation is Aug. 10
• About the commencement speaker
• Mean Green Village to return to practice field for Homecoming 2002
• UNT enters agreement with Mexican university
• 2002 Summer II enrollment climbs 8.5 percent over 2001
• UNT professor works to predict a fire's probable pathway

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