Students at WMG at the University of Warwick, recently took part in training for Defence Cyber Marvel 2, Western Europe’s largest live-fire cyber exercise. The training was designed to give the students a taste of cyber competitions ahead of the main event due to take place in February.

WMG entered two teams with 21 students in total, and along with three other teams they formed part of an unofficial Blue Team. The Blue Team were faced with the challenge of defending a large network of machines with different operating systems from a Red Team.

The WMG teams had great success in the training competition, placing second and third overall.

Dr Harjinder Lallie, Discipline Group Leader for Cyber Security at WMG, University of Warwick said: “Both teams did really well and should be proud of their performance in the competition. Their approach and attitude was exceptional and acts as a testament to the exceptional students on the degree course.”

The Defence Cyber Marvel 2 training competition was a fantastic opportunity for WMG students, with the University of Warwick being the only university invited to enter.

The students have established themselves as leaders in Capture the Flag (CFT) competitions and their success at the training competition has led to some of our students being selected to take part in the main event for Defence Cyber Marvel. This is an international Blue Team competition (A Network Defence Competition) involving the best cyber defence teams within the UK and NATO. The competition will test the skills of the participants to stop potential cyber-attacks against the UK.

Here are some comments from some of the students who took part:

"We all had a lot of fun, and it was an excellent opportunity to develop blue-team experience".

“It was a great opportunity to test some of the skills and knowledge that we had learnt over the past three years, in a challenging and well-funded environment. We gained invaluable experience and hope to take part in more similar competitions in the future.”

Find out more about the WMG BSc Cyber Security here: BSc Cyber Security (warwick.ac.uk)

Read more about WMG’s latest cyber security news here: Latest News (warwick.ac.uk)