Epitech students in the shoes of ethical hackers at the European Cybercup 2023!
On April 5th and 6th, the 3rd edition of the European Cyber Cup took place, a great ethical hacking competition organized during the annual International Cybersecurity Forum in Lille. On the occasion of this event, the ApeItek team, gathering the best cybersecurity students from French and international Epitech campuses, was formed to face 24 other teams on different high level hacking events. Here is a look back at this enriching experience.
Among the major cybersecurity competitions in France is the European CyberCup in Lille (EC2), the first e-sport competition dedicated to ethical hacking. For two days, professionals and students compete in 6 demanding events covering all aspects of cybersecurity: CTF, Forensic, OSINT, Bug Bounty, Hardware and Speedrun. Each challenge is designed to put participants in the shoes of digital investigation specialists. The particularity of this contest lies in its animation which uses all the codes of e-sport: a live broadcast on Twitch, a rhythmic animation, t-shirts specially designed for the event, sets, sounds and lights offering to the competitors a stimulating and fun atmosphere!
How was the ApeItek team born?
For Gabriel Madelaine-Toublanc, National Cybersecurity Manager at Epitech, there was a desire to enrich the educational path of students in computer security by offering them the opportunity to participate in competitions. Participating in EC2 was a goal for this year.
A discord server was created: Epitech Pwntek in order to gather all the students passionate about cybersecurity. This discord server has become the privileged place for our apprentice hackers to exchange, train and progress. Via Discord, students practice daily with online exercises and mini-challenges.
To form ApeItek - which is pronounced like “Epitech” - the students were selected according to their level and their involvement in the Epitech cybersecurity community on Discord. The team includes 10 students from 7 different campuses: Lille, Lyon, Nantes, Toulouse, Montpellier as well as Brussels and Cotonou, making ApeItek an international team! And why “ApeItek”? It’s a reference to a meme featuring monkeys often used on the Discord server.
The course of the competition
The EC2 is two days of competition, 6 events, 25 teams, 250 participants. The principle is simple: win points by finding a maximum of completion proofs - called “flags” - through the different challenges.
After an opening ceremony, hostilities began at 9:30 am with the first event: Forensic, which consisted of analyzing information systems after a cyberattack in order to collect evidence. Five other events were added throughout the day: CTF, OSINT, Hardware, Bug Bounty, Speedrun. The difficulty was to divide the tasks and split the team to scan all the events and collect as many flags as possible, while maintaining good communication between the members.
Participants had to defuse a bomb for the Hardware event, break into the local network of a pleasure boat to take control of its engines and rudder during the Speedrun conducted by Airbus Cybersecurity, identify security flaws on an NGO’s website for the Bug Bounty event, or find precise information on a shipping company for the OSINT event. Concrete scenarios that put our students in the shoes of hackers for two consecutive days.
On the second day, the test set continued with new flags to find and an even higher level of difficulty than the day before. The ApeItek had to be focused and organized. They did not spare their efforts throughout the 18 long hours of sometimes very tough events. The competition ended at the end of the day around 6 pm with a prize-giving ceremony.
The results
No overall podium for ApeItek but notable performances in three events:
3rd at the CTF organized by Sysdream
7th at Airbus Cybersecurity Speedrun
10th at Hardware organized by Quarkslab
All this out of a total of 25 teams.
We are proud of these results! Faced with over-trained teams or teams made up of professionals, these different rankings are great achievements for us, some of whom are not yet 20 years old.
We retain a crazy atmosphere, the pleasure of having found friends who share the same passion and especially the enrichment in terms of technical skills.
“During this competition I was able to work with people as passionate and talented as me. I also learned new techniques and discovered a new country. For me, it was a unique experience rich in discovery and opportunity!”
Aurel Azon, 2nd year student of the Grande Ecole Program at Epitech Cotonou in Benin
“The biggest pleasure of this event was the possibility to meet in real life people with whom we have been talking for almost 6 months on Discord, we were gathered around the same passion for a crazy event. I think it allowed us all to realize our strengths and weaknesses. I hope we can all go back together next year!”
Corentin Petrau, MSc1 student at Epitech Montpellier
“We really enjoyed participating in EC2. It was a whole new experience in terms of teamwork, the format and even the challenges, and we came away very motivated for the next time.”
Noé Heuillet, 5th year student in the Grande Ecole program at Epitech Toulouse and team captain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jglbfNLxkdY