Red vs. Blue

SWIFT's Flagship Competition

00 : 00 : 00 : 00

December 3rd, 2022 11:00 AM PST @ Cal Poly Pomona

About RvB

Red vs. Blue (RvB) is a SWIFT-run cybersecurity competition which teaches business, IT, and system administration by putting participants in the seat of an incident response team defending a company's network of computers against a real-time threat.


SWIFT board, alumni, and volunteers act as an adversary trying to compromise the network and give students a unique experience of troubleshooting and incident response in an active breach scenario.


Originating from a partnership between SWIFT, CPP's CCDC and CPTC teams, and Troy High School, RvB has always been designed to be a learn-by-doing opportunity. SWIFT aims to expand this opportunity for SWIFT members and give the competition experience into everyone's hands.

How RvB Works

RvB uses two main metrics to give points to participants: Service Uptime and Injects.

Service Uptime

RvB mocks a real business. Keeping your business up and actually functional is important. You get a small amount of points every few minutes if you keep your service functional. However, if you are unable keep your service operational for too long, you will receive a point penalty.

Injects

Throughout the competition, as if defending your network from an active red wasn't enough, your team will receive additional business tasks, injects, from the business that hired you. Submitting injects will reward you with extra points, but make sure to do it before the deadline or no points for you.

Testimonials

"... a perfect balance of challenge and fun..." A CyberPatriot Open Division National Champion
“ Overall I felt that the RvB was well put together... [and] extremely well developed with a fully immersive experience. This was complimented with a well designed technical element where services and red team contributed to a perfect balance of challenge and fun. Being at nationals for 5 years... [t]he RvB mocks we've done with Cal Poly have... various beneficial practice curveballs thrown at us to expose us to a wide variety of possibilities. My personal favorite part of RvB is the red team interaction. [It's] a very engaging experience when you see elements of red team activity and can respond in real time. ”
"... develop and practice skills under pressure..." A CyberPatriot Open Division Runner Up
“ I had fun participating in these, and I look forward to doing more RvBs, especially with SWIFT, in the future... [T]hese practices verify good procedures, establish good practices, and allow us to develop and practice skills under pressure... I found myself pleasantly surprised... ”
"You learn to think about the attacker's intent..." A CyberPatriot All-Service Division Runner Up
“ RvBs are a great way to see cyber in action and gives meaning to all the training and preparation beforehand... RvB felt like a simulation of nationals but harder... You learn to think about the attacker's intent. Everything revolves around what the attacker would do next and trying to preempt their moves... RvB also made me better at the fundamentals... SWIFT has been very helpful and generous with the effort put into RvBs to help us. ”