A team of computer science majors won first place in the computer forensics category at the recent Information Technology Competition at Cal Poly Pomona.
The four team members demonstrated their technical skills and business acumen with their forensic analysis of a fictional case involving attempted murder and theft. Cal Poly Pomona’s Management Information Systems Student Association hosted the April 18 competition.
Winning team members are: graduate student Frida Kiriakos, and undergraduates Jacob Pillai, Patrick Simpelo and Chris Garcia, computer engineering major with a minor in computer science. All are members of the Offensive Security Society student club.
The collegiate teams were given the criminal case to solve using computer forensic analysis tools and techniques, as well as problem-solving skills. The main part of the competition is the report and presentation, in which the team explains its analysis, how it found the clues and drew conclusions, Kiriakos said.
“Based on the feedback we got from our coaches and our judges, we were able to find the greater number of findings in our analysis to help investigators in solving the case,” she said. “We also presented our report in a professional and collaborative manner and were able to explain the technical details in a way everyone could understand.”
The team’s coaches were alumna Laura Chiu ’14 (B.S. computer science), who won second place in the same competition last year, and Chris Pavan, both of Bechtel Corp.; also faculty adviser Mikhail Gofman, assistant professor of computer science; and club adviser Chris Webb of E2VE security consulting company.