{"id":189158,"date":"2026-02-20T10:07:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T15:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/20\/aerospace-cyber-defenders-unlock-new-challenges-at-embry-riddle-capture-the-flag-contest\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T10:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T15:20:12","slug":"aerospace-cyber-defenders-unlock-new-challenges-at-embry-riddle-capture-the-flag-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/20\/aerospace-cyber-defenders-unlock-new-challenges-at-embry-riddle-capture-the-flag-contest\/","title":{"rendered":"Aerospace Cyber Defenders Unlock New Challenges at Embry-Riddle Capture-the-Flag Contest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aerospace Cyber Defenders Unlock New Challenges at Embry-Riddle Capture-the-Flag Contest<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/news.erau.edu\/headlines\/aerospace-cyber-defenders-unlock-new-challenges-at-embry-riddle-capture-the-flag-contest<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-02-20 10:07:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: news.erau.edu<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: <\/a><\/p>\n

Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points.
\n\t\t\tFor today\u2019s cybersecurity students, focused on digital tools, physical locks are something seldom encountered. But at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University\u2019s recent capture-the-flag competition, they had to pick them open.
\nThe challenge was organized by Randall Brooks, chief engineer for product security at RTX, one of the world\u2019s largest aerospace and defense companies. \u201cWe want students to understand how a simple lock works and how one would go about looking for a deficiency in a lock,\u201d he said. \u00a0
\nThe capture-the-flag competition was the highlight of the fourth Aviation Cyber Initiative (ACI) Cyber Rodeo at Embry\u2011Riddle\u2019s Daytona Beach Campus. Held under the auspices of the Center for Aerospace Resilient Systems (CARS), the two-day event took place this month and included technical demonstrations, poster presentations and recruiting sessions. The top student performers and teams in the competition earned $10,000 in prizes sponsored by RTX.
\n\u201cWe really want to reinforce what\u2019s being done at Embry-Riddle,\u201d Brooks said. \u201cWe do our own (capture the flags) for our own training exercises because we think it\u2019s a great way to help reinforce and learn.\u201d
\nStudents in the Department of Cyber Intelligence and Security at the Prescott Campus developed the challenges for the hypothetical airport attack scenario.(Photo: Embry-Riddle\/David Massey)
\nMuch of the capture-the-flag competition requires teams to earn points by defending against a worst-case scenario in which hackers have attacked a major airport. The challenges begin with securing compromised digital door locks, ticket systems and airline kiosks, as well as bringing baggage handling ramps and autonomous vehicles back online.
\nThe students then need to regain control of in-cabin entertainment systems. Finally, they take on the roles of pilots and air traffic controllers who must contend with fake signals that confuse navigation systems, causing aircraft to display incorrect positions and altitudes.
\nParticipants in the capture-the-flag\u00a0competition learn the \u201capplication of computer science and cybersecurity within specific systems in the aviation ecosystem, and, just as importantly, the application of aviation domain knowledge to shape and strengthen cybersecurity solutions,\u201d said Dr. Krishna Sampigethaya, professor and chair of the\u00a0Department of Cyber Intelligence and Security. \u201cThey can\u2019t get that anywhere else.\u201d
\nSampigethaya, Jesse Chiu, an assistant professor in the same department, and their students at the\u00a0Prescott Campus developed the challenges for the hypothetical airport cyberattack.
\nWhile such a wide-ranging attack has fortunately never occurred, elements of the scenarios presented in the challenges have played out. Last year, a ransomware attack disrupted major European airports for several days. The jamming and spoofing of GPS signals have flummoxed cockpit systems.
\n\u201cThese are not hypothetical risks,\u201d\u00a0Sampigethaya\u00a0said. \u201cThey are real-world threats that we can model, study and prepare for in this environment.\u201d
\nIndustry partners \u2014 including RTX, Boeing, Airbus and Riverside Research \u2014 expanded the scope of the competition with their own challenges.
\nStudents take on the roles of pilots and air traffic controllers who must contend with fake signals that confuse navigation systems, causing aircraft to display incorrect positions and altitudes. (Photo: Embry-Riddle\/David Massey)
\nSean Crouse, assistant professor of Graduate Studies in the College of Aviation at the Daytona Beach Campus and associate director of the\u00a0Center for Aerospace Resilient Systems, said these challenges help students understand the immediate objectives of the aerospace community, \u201cso that they can become the next generation of professionals who move into industry and protect our critical infrastructure.\u201d
\nStanley Seid, a private security engineer for Boeing, stood behind models of plane cabins with LED lights flashing in various colors. The challenge introduced students to a simplified version of a protocol, Seid said, that is becoming widely adopted by industry. \u00a0
\n\u201cWe aim to grow\u00a0the understanding of avionics protocols to build resilient systems,\u201d\u00a0he added.
\nAnthony Wirsing, a senior pursuing his bachelor\u2019s degree in Computer Science with a concentration in cybersecurity engineering, participated in the competition for the third year in a row.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s exciting because every year there are new attack vectors that these professionals have to defend against,\u201d he said.
\nThirty-three teams made up of 82 students competed in the competition, including four teams from the University of Central Florida. UCF\u2019s \u201cKnightsec\u201d team placed first for the second year in a row. Tom Nederost, a senior instructor in the computer science department at UCF, said that even though his students are not versed in aviation, \u201cthis shows them that they have a potential for a job in aerospace-related cybersecurity.\u201d
\nA team from the national security nonprofit Riverside Research had students try to get a drone\u2019s propellers to spin. The challenge explored the Heartbleed bug \u2014 an infamous internet security flaw exposed in 2014 \u2014 and packet injection attacks. Thomas Bailey, a research manager with the Secure and Resilient Systems group at Riverside Research, said that students rarely get to interact with operational hardware to learn how to actively defend against this style of attack.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a realistic scenario that is very reminiscent of some of these attacks that we are actually seeing out in the theater today,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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Aerospace Cyber Defenders Unlock New Challenges at Embry-Riddle Capture-the-Flag Contest https:\/\/news.erau.edu\/headlines\/aerospace-cyber-defenders-unlock-new-challenges-at-embry-riddle-capture-the-flag-contest Publish Date: 2026-02-20 10:07:00…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":189159,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/news.erau.edu\/-\/media\/images\/news\/headlines\/february-2026\/embry-riddle-ctf-lead.jpg?as=0&hash=A4957FF2063D314C01E9017FF5CE8950","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[24],"class_list":["post-189158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-cybersecurity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189158"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189158"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":189160,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189158\/revisions\/189160"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}