On March 4, 2021, teams worldwide will gather virtually to compete in SOC X, the Professional SOC (Security Operation Center) Team World Championship. This competition brings teams together to compete on detecting, investigating, and remediating hyper-realistic APT level attacks on a live-fire enterprise network.
"When the competition was announced, my immediate reaction was - we have to do this!" Director of Security Operations and Incident Response Robert Wilson said. "Since this competition requires the teams made up of security operations center members who work together professionally, it's a good way of us measuring ourselves against our professional peers."
The competition allows for groups of five people from multiple backgrounds to compete. Teams will have access to a compromised network and a set of integrated digital forensics and incident response tools. The SOC X competition includes teams from military units, higher education institutions, corporations, government agencies, and Fortune 500 companies. Currently, the UofSC IT Security Team is one of two universities listed as competitors.
"One of the things about excellence is that it requires that you hold yourselves to a higher standard and not be complacent, and what better way to do that than to test your skills against other smart people!" Wilson said. "While all of us have participated in capture the flag exercises individually or in ad hoc teams, we've never worked together in a competition. It will be a real test of how we work together in a series of complex attack scenarios."
The goal of the competition is to show that teams are more important than tools. Units will be put to the test in the team sport of digital forensics and incident response. We look forward to cheering on our IT Security Team as they put their best to the test and compete for World Champions' title!