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Majors & Degrees

Physical security featured at 2017 DakotaCon

March 29, 2017

“You have the greatest passwords in the world, but is the door locked?” said Dr. Kyle Cronin, assistant professor with the Dakota State University College of Computing.

Because businesses and organizations need to answer that question, a physical security expert named Deviant Ollam will be one of the featured speakers at the 7th annual DakotaCon. The event is being held March 31 – April 2 in Madison on the DSU campus.

Other speakers include Devan Greene, senior security research engineer at Ixia’s Application and Threat Intelligence Research Center, Dr. Tommy Morris, director of the Center for Cybersecurity Research and Education (CCRE) and associate professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and Daniel Crowley, senior security engineer and regional research director of the NCC Group Austin. 

The speakers will be featured on Friday, March 31, at the Dakota Prairie Playhouse. These sessions are free and open to the public, Cronin said. They will also be streamed live, available through a link on the website dakotacon.org.

In addition, the con will feature competitions, games, and training. The North Central Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC) is a two-day network security competition for college teams. These teams will build a network and operations environment, then protect and defend it from opposing teams. The team which can best defend its network will win this regional event and advance to the national competition in Texas later this spring.

Training sessions will be held Saturday and Sunday, on topics of malware analysis and vulnerability research, hardware hacking, and safe-manipulation attacks. These sessions require pre-registration, and will be held in East Hall. There is also a Capture the Flag (CTF) virtual contest.

Dakota State University professors and students volunteer their time to organize and help with the event. Several businesses are sponsors, including Raytheon, First Premier Bank and First Premier Bankcard, SDN Communications, Ixia, and the Air Force Civilian Service.