News & Events

ZeroDays CTF (www.zerodays.ie) is a cyber-security challenge, which took place last Friday 27th March in Generator, Smithfield, Dublin. The event was created to allow Irish third level students develop their information security skills and techniques in a fun and controlled environment through a number of exciting capture the flag security challenges.

The event was created and run by Mark Cummins and Mark Lane, lecturers on our Cyber Security and Digital Forensics courses, and was sponsored by the Institute of Technology Blanchardstown and Integrity Solutions.

ZeroDays - (which was specifically aimed at third level students)was a huge success, with around a hundred students from all over the country taking part. It was the largest cyber security challenge of its type in Ireland.

Throughout the day, teams used their own background and skillsets to solve challenges - all of which had some link to the fun Zombie-Apocalypse theme, capturing points as they worked their way through the puzzles. Domain challenges ranged from web application vulnerabilities, social engineering and exploitation to forensics, reverse engineering and cryptography, as well as a couple of treasure-hunts around the Smithfield area.

The top student team at the end of the day, was ITB's Hack4Craic, who also beat off competition from some professional cyber security teams, to be crowned Ireland's Colleges Cyber Security Champions 2015.

The main event was followed by an equally successful and well-deserved after-party and networking event, featuring live bands and a DJ.

According to Mark Lane and Mark Cummins "We were delighted with the response to the event and work has already begun on a follow-up event later this year. Our thanks to our sponsors and to all those who took part to make it such a great event".