Representing Region 12 and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), a team consisting of four students from the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics (CNSM) of Mindanao State University - General Santos City (MSU-GSC), placed 4th in the HackForGov Capture the Flag (CTF) competition which took place at Sequoia Manila Bay Hotel, October 4.
Hack4Gov is a Capture the Flag Hackathon where participants solve various cybersecurity problems across different categories to earn points wherein challenges may include web security, cryptography, forensics, and reverse engineering.
The ‘Pwngenius’ team, consisting of Mark Rhogie Purok, Selwyn Uy, Seanne Cañete, and Jeric Aminola, who are all students from the Bachelor of Science in Information Technology (BS IT) program, coached by a professor from the same college, Mr. Khalil Anton Ambalong.
According to Purok, the team captain, their preparations included solving random CTF and cybersecurity problems through finding a flag or answers, and brainstorming ideas and solutions for the said challenges.
He also shared that everyone in the team has their expertise in solving specific challenges in the competition.
“Si Seanne Cañete po is expertise nya reverse engineering, malware investigation, windows investigation. [Tapos] si Selwyn Uy po is cryptography, reverse engineering, forensics,” he said.
The team leader added that Jeric Aminola, one of the members, is trained for windows investigation, and forensics.
Purok, who also received an award as one of the top performing contestants in competition, specializes in network penetration testing, web exploitation, and privileges escalation.
He then expressed his disappointment as their request for allowance was declined by MSU-GSC.
“Challenges faced po upon preparing for the competition is yung budget po namin kasi na declined po yung request for allowance namin sa school kasi wala daw budget,” he said
However during the competition, they find difficulty upon solving for a challenge where they need to take malicious software apart to better understand it and collect evidence for them to find the flag.
“Yung pinaka nahirapan po kami na challenge is yung reversing the ransomware sa disk forensics,” he stated.
Organized by the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT) and Philippines National Computer Emergency Response Team (PNCERT), aims to strengthen the cybersecurity skills of young people in the country to ensure the safety of future cyber-users while building a community of collaboration among them. The event consisted of 20 competing teams from different universities across the country.
Pwgenius garnered a score of 2831 points, while the winning team Unit GG of NCR won with 3560 points.
The event was conducted along with the celebration of the National Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2024.
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