Information Security Education Journal Michael E. Whitman, Herbert J. Mattord 1 1 2014 http://www.dline.info/isej/fulltext/v1n1/6.pdf The creation of an experiential capstone experience for Information Security and Assurance students has been a decade-long challenge. Not long after security-based programs began offering degrees and concentrations in the discipline, the faculty struggled to create an industry-focused, balanced approach for security students. While some programs embraced the “capture-the-flag” approach to learning security through both offensive and defensive exercises, the faculty of the ISA degree program described in this article instead elected to adopt the purely defensive approach adapting a rapidly growing inter-collegiate competition structure as the capstone to their program. The purpose of this paper is share the experiences of the authors in planning and delivering that a cyber defense capstone course.