Hackathon challenge: Try to hack military ship

Austin’s Capital Factory will play host to Navy cybersecurity event.

This weekend, Austin technology accelerator Capital Factory will play host to a cybersecurity event by way of the sea.

A hackathon event put together by Booz Allen Hamilton, the Navy’s Naval Postgraduate School and the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental will work to improve national security with help from crowdsourcing.

It runs through Sunday and is free for the public (government employees must pay a per diem).

As part of our one-question interview series, we asked Brian MacCarthy, principal, Strategic Innovation Group at Booz Allen, about the event:

American-Statesman: What is a “maritime hackathon” and what’s the goal of this event?

MacCarthy: “With cybersecurity threats emerging daily, the U.S. Navy needs hackers more than ever to detect and defend the nation’s commercial goods and services on highly connected ships.

“For HACKtheMACHINE, Booz Allen built a ‘maritime cyber testbed’ named TRUDI — a boat in a box — which is a working model of the networked systems in a typical ship. For participants, the objective is to maneuver through this electronic battlespace in order to understand the art of the possible.

“The overall goal of this event is to create a global network of talent that is well versed in maritime cybersecurity, which does not currently exist. The U.S. Navy identified the need to create this network through our continued work with them to transform to meet their evolving business needs.

“Hackathons like this one, which is the second in a series of hackathons we are working on with them, are one way of working towards that goal. The decision to create a hackathon series with Booz Allen represents a fundamental shift in how the U.S. Navy thinks about and approaches cybersecurity.

“HACKtheMACHINE participants have a chance to win