Brainhack 2024 CDDC
Competition Information
BrainHack is a unique, hands-on experience into the swiftly evolving world of digital tech. Dive deep into the exciting realms of cybersecurity, artificial intelligence (AI), space technologies, app development, fake news detection, extended reality and more.
The Cyber Defenders Discovery Camp is a Jeopardy-style Capture the Flag (CTF) competition held during BrainHack 2024 by Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA).
It was an extraordinary experience to participate in BrainHack's Cyber Defenders Discovery Camp (CDDC) for the second time this year, building on my initial exposure to Capture the Flag (CTF) competitions last year. Advancing to the finals after the grueling 48-hour qualifiers was particularly rewarding. The final challenges were daunting, yet I was pleased to successfully tackle numerous problems presented in the jeopardy-style CTF. The finals offered a diverse array of challenges across categories such as Web3, Reverse Engineering, Operational Technologies, Virtual Reality, and Cryptography, providing a rich and engaging experience.
I had the distinct privilege and honor of presenting to our Senior Minister of State for the Ministry of Defence, Mr. Heng Chee How, along with esteemed guests from DSTA, Ministry of Defence of Singapore, and Singapore Armed Forces. During this presentation, I conducted a live demonstration, showing firsthand how adversaries can compromise Operational Technologies / Industrial Control Systems (OT/ICS). I highlighted the possible catastrophic impacts and emphasized the importance of enhancing our protection and security, underscoring the critical need to secure both our physical and digital infrastructures - Critical Information Infrastructure (CII). This opportunity came after I achieved "first blood" by being the first to solve a particular Operational Technology challenge that no one could solve until the very last hour of the event.
I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Koh Jie for his invaluable support throughout the qualifiers and up until the finals, though he definitely had wished for more OSINT challenges. We secured the 34th position out of 711 competing teams in the qualifiers and the 13th position in the finals out of 108 teams. Lastly, I am grateful to the Singapore Institute of Technology for the unforgettable experiences during my time as a student as this year not only marks my final participation in CDDC as a university student from Singapore Institute of Technology but also my final year in Singapore Institute of Technology itself. I would also like to thank Ensign InfoSecurity for the wonderful internship experience I had last year, which equipped me with all the skills I needed to make these accomplishments today.
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