Entries open for 9th edition of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham’s national ethical hacking contest for students from all over India
Kichi: Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham – ranked India’s eight best university among all private and public universities in the 2018 NIRF rankings – is all set to hold the 9th edition of its national ethical hacking contest from October to December this year.
Called Amrita InCTF, it is India’s premier cybersecurity talent-hunt competition which exposes students to computer security, secure coding practices and the implications of not adhering to them. While Amrita InCTF is meant for college students, Amrita InCTFj (India Capture the Flag Junior) is an innovative learn-hack-win challenge for school students from 8th to 12th standard. For free online registration, college students can visit www.inctf.in before November 5th. School students can apply online at junior.inctf.in before October 5th. Support is also available via WhatsApp at 8129426557.
Said Vipin Pavithran, Founder of Amrita InCTF and Professor at Amrita Centre for Cybersecurity Systems & Networks, Amrita Vishwa Vidypaeetham, Kerala: “Amrita InCTF is meant to discover and nurture budding talent in the field of cybersecurity. More than 12, 000 students from 19 states have participated in the event since its inception in 2010, and they have considered it a great learning experience mentored by friendly experts, with some rare opportunities to listen to such computing legends as Bob Kahn and Herbert Bos. The global technology industry holds Amrita InCTF in high esteem. Many participants have been recruited by the security divisions of firms like Google, VMWare, FireEye, Flipkart, Amazon, Symantec and DRDO.”
The contest is coordinated and managed by India’s premier cybersecurity team from Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, called ‘bi0s.’ Entry is free for all students and no prior experience is required to participate. The university will bear the travel, accommodation and food expenses of all students during the onsite contest at the university’s Amritapuri campus in Kollam district in Kerala.
The Amrita InCTF and InCTFj have been structured as a four-part challenge including a learning round lasting two months, followed by an online round, onsite training and the final onsite contest. Students will learn through mock contests and the event’s wiki https://wiki.bi0s.in/ and YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/InCTFj After this, they will participate in an online contest based on what they learned at the mock contest. Fifty finalists would be selected based on the outcome of the online test. Online training will be held from December 22-27, followed by the final online contest and prize distribution on December 28, 2018. There is a Rs 1.5 lakhs cash prize for the winning students. Amrita university will also help set up cybersecurity clubs along with free training and mentoring at schools with good number of active participants in the competition.
Added Vipin Pavithran: “While the Digital India initiative has made Internet accessible to almost every Indian, it has also paved the way for the entry of anti-social elements into the online world. With more and more people depending on the Internet to run their day-to-day lives, the importance of cybersecurity can’t be emphasized more to keep the web safe for everyone. Unfortunately, cybersecurity has not been included as a discipline in the curriculum of schools or undergraduate studies in our country yet. This has made cybersecurity related careers inaccessible to Indian students. There will be a demand for 3.5 million cybersecurity professionals worldwide by the year 2021. It is therefore very important for Indian students to learn about the challenges and opportunities that cybersecurity offers.”