Education Initiative Spotlight: Build it Break it
Summary: The University of Maryland ran Build it Break it, described as a first-of-its-kind security challenge in which contestants both implement secure software and identify vulnerabilities in the creations of others, with points awarded for both secure construction and flaw identification. Trail of Bits sponsored the contest, which is open to any undergraduate or graduate student at a US-based university competing for cash prizes, and its engineers will serve as a "break it" team.
What you should know: The contest is framed as a way to gather empirical evidence about which languages and frameworks produce more secure software, since contestants may use any language or framework and more implementations built with a given tool should remain standing. Trail of Bits notes there are many competitions that teach students to break software but relatively few that challenge them to build it right.
Read the original at Trail of Bits Blog ↗
- Topics
- Vulnerabilities & Patching
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