Hackers want to disturb the city's water supply. The disaster is near. This is how the game "Cybetron" begins. Thanks to the cooperation between WUST, Faculty of ICT, Wrocław Centre for Networking and Supercomputing, and the Marshal's Office of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship the competition will be open to students from Poland and the Czech Republic.

– Currently, cybersecurity is becoming particularly important, which is why we have prepared an event to encourage students from Lower Silesian secondary schools to gain knowledge in the field of digital threats – explains Marcin Krzyżanowski, deputy marshal of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship.

Password: CyberTron2022

Who’s going to stop hackers

“Cybertron" is a team game that tests IT skills and the ability to creatively solve problems in the field of cybersecurity and critical infrastructure. Its aim is to build awareness of the threats that may be lurking in the Internet, to learn how to deal with them and to possibly eliminate them without doing any harm to the user.

The plot of the game assumes an attack by hackers on a municipal water utility. The attackers want to interrupt the water supply to a large urban agglomeration. The task for the students will be to stop them.

The competition was divided into two parts. First, the participants will take part in a field game, during which they will have to find passwords and instructions hidden on the premises of the Wrocław University of Science and Technology campus. The tips will prove useful in the next stage, i.e. in the IT part related to cybersecurity.  

– Not only are we the host of the entire event, but also our employees and students from research clubs prepare the tasks that the participants will have to face. The opponents that high school students will cope with on the second day of the competition will also be specialists from Wrocław University of Science and Technology – says Prof. Arkadiusz Wójs, rector of the University.

The IT stage will consist of several CTF (Capture the flag) tasks in the field of, among others, networking, cryptography or website security. The goal will be for the teams to overcome digital obstacles and find a certain string of characters. Importantly, students will learn not learn how to become a threat, but rather how to avoid cyber attacks and how to protect against them.

The game scenario and some tasks were also created by students from the White Hats and TK Games research clubs operating at the Faculty of Information and Communication Technology and from the WUST Academic High School, who participated in the previous edition of the competition in the Czech Republic.

Registration is already underway

The event is open to two-person teams of secondary school students from all over Lower Silesia. Applications are accepted until 23 September at cybertron.edu.pl.

Online qualifiers are planned on 1 and 2 October, and the five best teams from the region will take part in the finals, which will take place on 22-23 October at Wrocław University of Science and Technology. Ten best students from the Kralovohradecki Krai, who passed the Czech qualifications, will also come to Wrocław.

– The fact that Polish students can come to the Czech Republic and that Czech students can come to Poland is very important because cybersecurity and the IT world have no borders, and this is one of the key benefits that Europe has offered us. That is why I keep my fingers crossed for all students to develop their skills and hopefully protect us in the future – emphasizes Arnost Stepanek, deputy hetman of the Kralovohradec Region.

The event is organized by the local government of Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Wrocław University of Science and Technology, the Faculty of Information and Communication Technology, the Wrocław Centre for Networking and Supercomputing, Lower Silesian Teacher Training Center and the Startup Founders Association.

More information on the game website.