Overcoming a thousand contestants and 233 teams from all ten ASEAN member countries, the ISIT-DTU1 team was awarded second prize in the finals of the 2023 ASEAN Student Information Security contest. ISIT-DTU1 were the only team from Central Vietnam to win a prize at the contest and were honored with a Certificate of Merit by the Minister of Education & Training. ISIT-DTU1 then also represented Vietnam in the ASEAN Cyber Shield Hacking contest that took place in Indonesia on November 22.
The annual ASEAN Student Information Security Contest is held on Vietnam Information Security Day. The 2023 edition was the 16th taking place in Vietnam and the 5th that was open to students from other ASEAN countries. The event was hosted by the Vietnam Information Security Association (VNISA), in collaboration with the IT Department of the Ministry of Education & Training, the Authority of Information Security, and the Department of International Cooperation from the Ministry of Information & Communications. Pham Ho Anh Dung, from DTU Information Security, came second.
Pham Ho Anh Dung (second from right)
The start-up round was held online on October 7, comprising 233 teams from 63 universities and colleges from all ten ASEAN member countries. Then, 18 teams from Vietnam and 2 from Indonesia and Singapore entered the finals on November 11 to answer questions on:
- Exploiting software bugs
- Decompiling software back into source code
- Unpacking packers and crypters to protect the software
- Attacking web applications
- Decoder puzzles, attacking encryption algorithms
- using programming & algorithm skills to solve games, mazes, attack and defense
In the finals, the teams had to protect their systems from attack by other teams and perform counterattacks to score additional points.
The final results were:
- First prize: UIT.Wolf_Brigade from the University of Information Technology (UIT) at the Vietnam National University (VNU) in HCMC
- Second prizes: ISIT-DTU1 from DTU; UIT.Oppenheimer from the UIT of the VNU HCMC; and KMA.NOT2BAD, from the Academy of Cryptography Techniques
- Third prizes: KMA.APTX-4869, from the Academy of Cryptography Techniques; NUS GreyMeows, from the National University of Singapore; Nu_RobinHust and Nu_ph1sher from the School of ICT at the Hanoi University of Science & Technology (HUST); and HCMACT-Akatsuki, from the Academy of Cryptography Techniques in HCMC.
ISIT-DTU1 wins a second prize
The DTU prize was due to the quality of education at the university, the intensive training that both lecturers and students go through, and the experience gained in similar competitions, at home and abroad.
“The 2023 ASEAN Student Information Security contest was aimed at both domestic and other ASEAN institutions strong in IT, making the level of competition in each round tense and sometimes fierce,” said Dau Hoang Tai, from the DTU International School. “The questions are tough, so getting to the finals required the maximum amount of effort and concentration of all team members. Consequentially, we learned many important lessons and raised our skill levels, which we’ll be able to use in our future careers.”
The awards ceremony of the 2023 ASEAN Student Information Security contest was scheduled to be part of this year’s Vietnam Information Security Day, held by VNISA at the end of November.
Four prize-winning teams from the 2023 ASEAN Student Information Security then competed in the ASEAN Cyber Shield Hacking contest in Indonesia on November 22, 2023:
- UIT.pawf3ct from the UIT at the VNU HCMC won first prize
- ISIT-DTU1 from DTU won second prize
- KMA.L3N0V0, hosted by the Academy of Cryptography Techniques, also came second
- SECGANG, from the HUST won third prize.
From November 13 to 16, an Information Security Drill was organized by the Danang Department of Information & Communications, in collaboration with VNCERT/CC. Teams from government agencies and universities in Central Vietnam and the Central Highlands attended and the DTU Information Security team finished second overall. First prize went to the VNPT company, and a third to a team from the Vietnam-Korea University of ICT.
(Media Center)