Comcast Center for Security Innovation

CyberSEED 2026 Challenges 129 Teams to Put Cybersecurity Skills to the Test

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Team of four men work on cybersecurity challenge on their laptopsCybersecurity requires more than understanding the theory behind digital threats. It takes analytical thinking, technical skills, and the ability to solve problems under pressure. Those skills were on display October 3 as 129 teams competed in CyberSEED 2026, an online Capture the Flag (CTF) competition hosted by UConn’s Connecticut Advanced Computing Center (CACC).

The annual competition brought together students from 70 colleges and universities across the country for hands-on challenges in cybersecurity, including cryptography, open-source intelligence, password cracking, digital forensics, network traffic analysis, reverse engineering, and web application security.

Teams earned points by solving technical problems and analyzing potential security vulnerabilities. The competition also included an incident response briefing, giving participants an opportunity to practice communicating technical findings and risks to an audience of stakeholders.

Bits For Everyone from the United States Military Academy took first place, followed by cu_kaazmo from Cedarville University in second and CyberLions from Pennsylvania State University in third. Teams from Purdue University, the University of Central Florida, the SANS Technology Institute, and other institutions also finished among the top 10. View the complete list of winners.

Bits for Everyone Logo cu_kaazmo logo CyberLions logo
Bits for Everyone
First Place		 cu_kaazmo
Second Place		 CyberLions
Third Place

For participants, the experience offered more than a leaderboard finish. One team from the Rochester Institute of Technology described how the competition helped deepen its understanding of cybersecurity concepts through practical application. The team also highlighted the incident response briefing as an opportunity to strengthen its ability to communicate technical risks and recommendations.

Hosted by CACC and sponsored by Synchrony, with the competition platform provided by Cyber Skyline, CyberSEED connects students with challenging, practical exercises that complement their academic studies. By encouraging participants to apply their knowledge in a competitive setting, the event helps students develop skills relevant to the evolving cybersecurity field.

The 2026 competition continued UConn’s longstanding involvement in cybersecurity education and research, bringing students together to learn, collaborate, and test their abilities against a diverse set of technical challenges.

Registration Open for New England Security Day

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UConn will host the New England Security Day on March 15, 2024 at the Innovation Partnership Building | UConn Tech Park. This event showcases cutting-edge research in all areas of cybersecurity from academics and professionals. The audience is a mix of students (undergraduate and graduate) and working researchers. It represents an opportunity to learn about state-of-the-art and recruit phenomenal students from universities across New England. The program committee creating the schedule has participants from Boston University, Brown, UConn, Harvard, UMass, MIT, Northeastern, WPI, and Yale. We encourage attendance and participation from industry. Talks will be accessible to a general audience in cybersecurity so don’t worry if you’re behind on the latest fuzzer, ML methods for intrusion detection, or efficient post-quantum cryptography.

Please register here. If you would like to be more involved please contact Jessica Guilbeault jessica.guilbeault@uconn.edu and Benjamin Fuller Benjamin.fuller@uconn.edu.

Synchrony Center of Excellence in Cybersecurity at UConn Tech Park

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image of Stealing personal data through a laptop concept for computer hacker, network security and electronic banking securityOur culture is arguably becoming more and more dependent on ubiquitous information technology. Digital devices play a critical role for healthcare, banking, commerce, entertainment, manufacturing and more. Meanwhile, our digital tools are constantly vulnerable to ongoing attacks meant to steal private and personal information, intellectual property, trade secrets, financial records or even voter databases.

The Synchrony Center of Excellence in Cybersecurity at Tech Park and Synchrony have formed a partnership committed to safeguarding the infrastructures and organizations at the heart of our digital economy. They are taking a two-pronged approach to tackle this issue, by developing information security talent and conducting leading research that best supports the companies and consumers struggling to stay ahead of these threats.

Laurent Michel, professor in UConn’s Computer Science and Engineering Department and Center Director for the Synchrony Center of Excellence in Cybersecurity, believes this approach is imperative to developing sound strategies for reducing vulnerability to cyber-attacks.

As a consumer financial services company, Synchrony maintains a vested interest in protecting their customers from cybersecurity breaches. They have provided generous support to the center since its inception, including an endowment for the Synchrony Chair in Cybersecurity held by Laurent Michel, with a focus on leadership in the advancement of education and research in cybersecurity. Synchrony has also provided funding for a Cybersecurity Fellows Program and a scholarship program for UConn graduate students to conduct independent cybersecurity research.

The Synchrony Center of Excellence in Cybersecurity is one of four member centers of the Connecticut Advanced Computing Center (CACC), an umbrella group with a broader overarching purpose. A key goal for CACC and its member centers is to break new technology grounds and advance innovative solutions to prevent, detect and cope with the spectrum of attacks that threaten information technology systems.

Within CACC, the Synchrony Center of Excellence in Cybersecurity addresses threats to financial organizations as well as the assessment and adoption of cyber-technologies susceptible to impact FinTech.  The three sister centers specialize in critical areas such as networking products deployed in businesses and homes, hardware security and ensuring safe and secure elections in the State.

Staying ahead of this maelstrom of digital infiltrators is a constantly evolving challenge. The Synchrony Center of Excellence in Cybersecurity and all the CACC centers offer to agencies, industries and the public at large, the necessary education, awareness and transparent technology they need to continue to operate effectively in such adversarial environments.

Laurent Michel is an internationally recognized expert in the area of cybersecurity. He was appointed Synchrony Chair for Cybersecurity in December 2019 and is also co-Director of CACC.

Click here for more information on Michel and his academic work. For more information on CACC and its other member centers, click here.