What College Kids Always Get Wrong: Lessons from CCDC Red Teaming
NECCDC red teamer Forrest Fuqua breaks down common defensive blunders collegiate competitors make when trying to harden already-compromised systems.
Summary
The Pressure Cooker of Collegiate Cyber Defense (CCDC)
In collegiate cyber defense competitions, student blue teams are tasked with defending inherently vulnerable, legacy enterprise environments against active red teamers.
Analyzing Recurring Defensive Blunders
Forrest Fuqua reviews classic mistakes made by competitors—including attempting to patch non-critical services while default credentials and root backdoors remain active.
Prioritizing Incident Triage and System Isolation
The speaker explains why establishing basic visibility, password resets, and network segmentation must take precedence over complex software configuration changes.
Practical Advice for Aspiring Defenders and Educators
The presentation offers actionable defensive frameworks for cybersecurity students and competition coaches to improve incident triage under pressure.
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