Highline Community College

MEDIA RELEASE

FOR RELEASE: IMMEDIATELY
DATE: April 8, 2009

CONTACT: Amelia Phillips: (206) 878-3710, ext. 3497; aphillip@highline.edu

Lisa Skari: (206) 870-3705; lskari@highline.edu

Highline team takes 2nd in cyber defense competition

DES MOINES, Wash. — Highline Community College’s cyber defense team finished second in the Pacific Rim Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition held in Seattle from March 28-29.

Highline students Dan Hardy, Mark Flynn, Sanderson Sousa, Dave Fitzsimmons, Freddie Le, Michael Sisson and team leader Steve Raniero worked together to defend a network from hackers for a fictitious company that had just fired its information technology department.

Highline’s team received the highest score in a category for the least amount of network interruptions by the hackers.

“We are really proud of the team and know that they will be great employees or business owners soon,” said Amelia Phillips, Highline computer science faculty member and team adviser.

Other teams participating in the second annual event included the University of Washington – Seattle, UW – Tacoma, UW iSchool, University of Alaska – Fairbanks, Whatcom Community College and DeVry University.

The winner, UW – Seattle, will compete in the national competition in San Antonio, Texas, from April 17-19, 2009.

The event was hosted by Microsoft and UW’s Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity.

For more information about the competition, visit http://ciac.ischool.washington.edu/ccdc.shtml.

Highline Community College was founded in 1961 as the first community college in King County. With approximately 10,000 students and 350,000 alumni, it is one of the state’s largest institutions of higher education. The college offers a wide range of academic transfer and professional-technical education programs, with day, evening, online and weekend classes.

With the most diverse population of any college in Washington state, Highline takes a multicultural approach to education for the success of all its students and the prosperity of its surrounding communities. Alumni include former Seattle Mayor Norm Rice, entrepreneur Junki Yoshida and Washington state poet laureate Sam Green.

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