Three APU Teams Placed In Top 10 At i-HACK 2022

All teams gain valuable experience in terms of hacking and defence in real-world cyber security practises that are not covered in educational modules

TOP 10: APU’s team (from left) x0rry, Spac3Cat, and Cyb3rWarrior.

To address the need to educate Malaysians about the importance of cyber security, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) organised an inter-varsity cybersecurity competition, i-HACK, in conjunction with the Siber Siaga 2022 week.

The Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF) and Velum Labs Sdn. Bhd. co-organized the event, which was officiated by Rear Admiral Dato’ Ts. Shamsuddin Hj. Ludin, Director of Defence Cyber and Electromagnetic Division.

The competition’s goal is to provide a platform for cybersecurity experts from higher education learning institutions to gather and exchange knowledge about strategies and solutions.

Furthermore, this competition promotes computer system security in today’s cyber space, as well as fostering security awareness among students in response to cyber security incidents in the local community.

This 24-hour Capture-the-Flag (CTF) competition, which started at 10 a.m. on 19th December 2022 and ended at 10 a.m. on 20th December 2022, features a diverse set of mixed challenges from various security categories such as forensics, attack and defence, with the number of points awarded for submitting a valid flag varying according to the challenge difficulty.

However, this competition is only open to 100 teams from Malaysian universities, colleges, and polytechnics. They first competed in an online qualifying round, with only the top twenty teams advancing to the finals.

In the qualification round, three groups from Asia Pacific University of Technology and Innovation (APU) finished second (Spac3Cat), third (x0rry), and sixth, respectively (Cyb3rWarrior).

The three groups advanced to the final round, and Spac3Cat finished fourth, while Cyb3rWarrior remained in sixth place and x0rry finished seventh.

Mentor mentee: Before the prize-giving ceremony, APU representatives posed for a commemorative photo.

Spac3cat: Ryan Martin, William Wijaya, and Matthew Huang are third-year Data Analysis and Cyber Security students who are representing APU for the first time at i-HACK.

“This competition was different than any CTF competitions we joint because it involved techniques in memory forensics, reverse engineering, web exploration, lots of trial and error and perseverance.

“In other words, this experience taught us things used in real-world cybersecurity practises that are not covered in APU modules and helps prepare us for our future careers,” said Ryan, the group’s leader.

William added that, they had also learned how to automate the exploitation processes and patch the vulnerabilities.

“It helped us to build the fundamentals for us to understand more complex stuff. This competition will undoubtedly aid us in confronting new challenges by honing our problem-solving abilities.”

As a new member of team Spac3cat, Matthew acknowledges that Ryan and William played a significant role in solving most of the challenges because they are more experienced.

“I hope to participate in multiple competitions and events to broaden my knowledge, as well as do certifications to boost my resume in order to land a good career job,” he said.

At the same time, they agreed that APU subjects/modules enable them to have the basic knowledge to participate in this competition while also automatically adding new knowledge to help with their studies through extensive preparation and practise.

As advisors and coaches for the Forensic & Security Research Center Student Section (FSEC-SS), Ms Nor Azlina Abdul Rahman and Ms Noris Ismail mentored all three teams: Spac3Cat, Cyb3rWarrior, and x0rry.

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