students vs hackers

informit.com have published a write-up of the Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition held in the U.S. last year. While the article is old it makes a good read.In this competition a group of professional hackers is pitted against several groups of students who are each given a small network to administer and defend. These networks are pre-configured with an assortment of old and unpatched software and operating systems in such a way as to be representative of the sort of "legacy" network students are likely to encounter when they move into their first job.