Miami University Cyber Security Club wins first place at Ohio University Capture the Flag competition
The Miami University Cyber Security Club (MUCSC) recently attended Ohio University’s Capture the Flag (CTF) competition and received first place.
Miami University Cyber Security Club wins first place at Ohio University Capture the Flag competition
By Gabby Benedict, CEC Student Intern
The Miami University Cyber Security Club (MUCSC) recently won first place at Ohio University’s Capture the Flag (CTF) competition, a technical competition with a focus on various subcategories of cybersecurity.
MUCSC was co-founded by Suman Bhunia, an assistant professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department, Software Engineering senior Tom Deep and five other Miami students in the summer of 2020 and has significantly grown to around 100 members in it’s two years of existence. During weekly meetings, the club discusses current cyber events and educates their members on both offensive and defensive cyber security.
Along with Deep, the team of four attending the competition consisted of sophomore Robotics Engineering student Frederick Levins, sophomore Computer Engineering student Blake Rile and freshman Computer Science student Dylan Middendorf.
To prepare, the team utilized online resources such as YouTube and write-ups on past capture the flag events such as the Google CTF. The competition took place Nov. 4 and 5 on Ohio University’s campus.
The competition’s puzzles focused on subcategories of cybersecurity that included exploitation, reverse engineering, hardware, packet filtration, cryptography, stenography, binary, and forensics. Each puzzle had “flags” hidden within them, with the flag being found by solving the question. Once the flag is typed into the answer field, points are awarded to the team.
“We started off by solving 3/6 puzzles within the first 90 minutes of the competition. We then spent the next three hours solving the final 3 puzzles and finished in first place around 3 p.m.,” the team said.
Since the club is new at Miami, going against more well established teams was nerve-wracking, but the team’s dedication and hard work leading up to the competition helped them in securing their victory.
“I feel very proud working with the club as the advisor. I am delighted to see this level of enthusiasm and dedication among the students,” said Bhunia.
