About

Student-run org under Baskin Engineering focused on all things computer security. All programming comes from students with faculty oversight for leadership. Founded in 2022 after students wanted a community around security. There was a club before us (Security Santa Cruz) but it faded around 2014.

TLDR: we do cool stuff with computers.

This group is open to all students consistent with state and federal law, the UC Nondiscrimination Statement and the Nondiscrimination Policy Statement for University of California Publications Regarding Student-Related Matters.

What we do

Socialize

Our Discord is where most of the action happens. Sharing security news, talking about industry events, showing off projects, or getting help on something you're working on. Follow us on Instagram for the fun side.

Learn

Hands-on workshops and working sessions. We show you a concept, explain why it matters, then let you go free range on a practice environment. Everything runs on our Cyber Range, our club server rack.

Compete

Diverse competitions throughout the year, mostly online, some in-person. CTFs, cyber defense like CCDC, attack/defend like MITRE eCTF. See competitions for details.

Club projects

Applied hacking on real stuff. Bug bounties, securing university systems, hacking routers and IP cameras, porting Doom onto handheld scanners, reverse engineering alarm systems with RF hardware.

Competitions

Capture the Flag

Jeopardy-style hacking competitions that run over a weekend (usually 48 hours). Small computer puzzles across categories like web exploitation, reverse engineering, cryptography, forensics, and binary exploitation. Each challenge has a hidden flag, submit it for points. Harder challenges are worth more.

Never seen one? Watch a quick explainer, or read CTFd's "What's a CTF?".

Part of the CTF experience is writing up your solutions after, documenting how you approached the problem and what you learned. We encourage members to post writeups on our posts page.

Cyber Defense

Blue team competitions where you defend a network while red teamers (hackers) try to break in. You're keeping services running, handling business tasks, and responding to security incidents all at once.

CCDC (Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition) is the largest in the US. Your 8-person team inherits a corporate network full of vulnerabilities. You're patching systems, responding to intrusions, and answering fake customer service tickets while professional pentesters actively attack you. Each competition day runs 9-5. We compete in the Western region.

Attack / Defend

Competitions where you build something secure, then attack other teams' implementations while they attack yours.

MITRE's eCTF (Embedded Capture the Flag) is a semester-long competition focused on embedded systems. First phase (~2 months): design and build a secure system based on their specs (past challenges have included satellite TV decoders and medical devices). Second phase (~1-2 months): break into other teams' designs.

I'm not a CS major

Good, we need you. Security touches everything, so we need people who understand everything. Policy, psychology, economics, design, law, hardware, biology. The field has a blind spot when everyone comes from the same background. We've had economics majors, politics majors, and art majors contribute to CTF teams and club projects.

Member rules

Computer crime is a real thing (18 U.S.C. 1030). If you're unsure whether something crosses a line, ask around in the community.

Sponsors

Slug Security is the largest cybersecurity organization at UC Santa Cruz. We run technical workshops, compete in national competitions like CCDC and MITRE eCTF, and give students hands-on security experience.

Sponsorships cover competition travel, equipment, infrastructure, and events. We mainly run on alumni donations and university grants, no formal brochures, but if you're interested we're happy to work something out. Reach out at slugsec@ucsc.edu.

Slug Security operates under The Regents of the University of California, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (EIN 94-1539563). Donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.

Our sponsors