Subscriptions for the annual student hacking Competition hosted by the NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering is open to participants from all over the globe.
The final phase of the event Cyber Security Awareness Week ( CSAW ) will take place on November 13-15. It accepts competitors from Lyceums and doctoral programs, who will have to compete in six qualifying rounds for a place in the final.
Prizes will be scholarships and various awards. In addition to the six races, there is also the competition Capture the Flag aimed at finding ways to breach system security and intercept protected data. This is the most popular of the events of the competition, with a qualifying round that will take place between 19 - 21 September.
There is also a class for criminology analysis, intended for high school students as well as a hardware hacker section. In announcement for organizing the event, the organizers said that a new competition for a public policy developed by students was added.
This year, Yahoo's Chief Information Security Officer, Mr. Alex Stamos (apparently of Greek descent), will provide the opening keynote presentation, titled "Shaping the Future: Espionage, Cybercrime, and Your Career" on November 13, during reception of the finalists.
According to the university announcement, last year's event gathered more than 15.000 students, showing that there is growing interest from participants.
This year's contest is backed by a total of 20 organizations, the gold sponsor is the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). OR Yahoo is the silver sponsor (2) for competition, while the list of bronze sponsors includes big names such as Facebook, the National Security Service (NSA), NCC Group North America and Palantir
Additional companies that offer support is FireEye, Intel, Microsoft, the MIT Lincoln Laboratory and the service United States Secret Service. It is worth noting that security services have a steady presence in security events and hacker competitions in particular.