Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge Highlights
Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge Highlights
Team Black Knights from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point is the winner of the 2018 ‘Cyber 9/12 Student Challenge’ co-hosted by the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) and the Atlantic Council
The two-day event, which ran on 5 and 6 April at the GCSP in the Maison de la Paix, welcomed 20 teams of four students each from Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Finalists included:
- First place: Team Black Knights from the US Military Academy at West Point (USA)
- Second place: Team NOBUS from HSG Universität St. Gallen and ETH Zurich (Switzerland)
- Third place: Team ETHernet from ETH Zurich (Switzerland)
- Fourth place: Team DSV Cyber from Stockholm University (Sweden)
Already in its fourth year, the competition invited university students to tackle a simulated cyber incident in real time. This year, the challenge’s scenario is based on a European level cyber crisis targeting the aviation ecosystem. Teams were required to respond to ever-changing situations and offer strategic policy recommendations for government leaders and senior officials.
‘As far as the competition was concerned, the biggest surprise for us was to adapt a European mindset in how we develop and formulate our policies,’ says Nolan Hedglin, a member of Team Black Knights and a graduating senior, majoring in mathematics and physics. ‘Initially, we came off almost too militaristic because we were so focused on security. In fact, the EU framework is more about the actual asset response and how they want to protect their systems and keep operations moving, and we tried to focus more on this during the final round of the competition.’
The judges featured prominent personalities in the field of cybersecurity and included Group Captain Shaun Harvey, Head of Cyber Operations, Cyberspace Operations Centre, NATO; Ms Chelsey Slack, Deputy Head, Cyber Defence Section, Emerging Security Challenges Division, NATO; Mr Pertti Jalasvirta, Partner, CLANED Group; Mr Gilles Fuchs, Founder, Cyber-AID.org and Executive-in-Residence, Global Fellowship Initiative, GCSP and Mr. Pete Cooper, Non-resident Senior Fellow, Cyber Statecraft Initiative, Atlantic Council.
‘It’s important to explain what’s happening and deliver the news in a simplified manner to stakeholders,’ said Laura Crespo, Public Affairs Officer at the Swiss Federal Department, during the feedback segment of the competition. ‘Stakeholders are moving back and forth between meetings so they don’t always have time to digest long reports or decipher complex information,’ she said.
20 universities participated this year:
- Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia)
- University of Jyväskylä (Finland)
- Leibniz Universität Hannover (Germany)
- National University of Public Service (Hungary)
- The Neumann János University (Hungary)
- The Szent István University (Hungary)
- Óbuda University (Hungary)
- Norwegian Defence University College (Norway)
- Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Norway)
- Military University of Technology Warsaw (Poland)
- Edinburgh Napier University (Scotland)
- Swedish Defence University (Sweden)
- Stockholm University (Sweden)
- University of Lausanne (Switzerland)
- ETH Zürich (Switzerland)
- HSG Universität St. Gallen (Switzerland)
- University of Westminster (United Kingdom)
- University of Bristol (United Kingdom)
- Air University (United States)
- United States Military Academy at West Point (United States)
Team Black Knights follows in the steps of last year’s winner – Team STUXNET from the Geneva School of Diplomacy.
‘It was an amazing competition,’ said judge Rami Efrati, Founder and President of Firmitas, a cyber security consulting firm in Israel. ‘The participants were very talented people dealing with cyber policy and regulations. They are the future of the cyber security.’
The GCSP thanks all the sponsors that made this 4th edition of the Cyber 9/12 Student Challenge a success and looks forward to welcoming many of you in April 2019!
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