PRESS RELEASE
Hack The Box (HTB), the main gamified cybersecurity upskilling, certification, and expertise evaluation platform, is asserting its fifth annual international University Capture The Flag (CTF) competitors that may happen from December 8 to 10, 2023. Targeting college college students and better training, the CTF marks a pivotal second for the subsequent technology of cyber professionals amidst a staggering 4 million expertise scarcity, aiming to upskill college students with the most recent methods to outpace cyber-criminals.
Students Turn to Resources Outside of a Traditional Curriculum
The CTF additionally comes as HTB releases new analysis involving 2,800 college college students who actively use the HTB platform. According to the findings, 75% of cybersecurity and IT college students flip to HTB alongside their formal training. In gentle of the quickly evolving menace panorama, 47% utilise the platform to reinforce their total cyber abilities, whereas 24% flip to it to prepared themselves for the dynamic cyber job market and office calls for.
Notably, 83% of scholars see improved grades after upskilling on the platform; a quantity which demonstrates the significance of mixing hands-on sensible studying with conventional theory-based training.
Haris Pylarinos, CEO and Founder at Hack The Box, says: “Hands-on studying experiences are not optionally available however a necessity alongside college curricula. The development of hiring based mostly solely on levels has been slowly fading in 2023, and this may assist minimize the purple tape holding again an untapped pool of extremely expert cyber expertise ready within the wings.”
“It’s essential to equip the subsequent technology with cutting-edge abilities, enhancing their tutorial efficiency whereas aligning them with real-world cyber threats earlier than they enter the workforce. In the previous yr, we’ve seen menace actors go above and past, so we won’t afford for graduates to be unprepared for real-world threats. This is why 2023 would be the first time we embody offensive and defensive challenges, creating well-rounded cyber professionals who can out-pace cybercriminals.”
Building Offensive and Defensive Skills for the Real World
This yr’s CTF will empower college students to reinforce offensive and defensive abilities, constructing on HTB’s growth into defensive safety. This twin proficiency is extra essential than ever, on condition that HTB’s analysis revealed 60% of execs are actually pursuing hybrid careers that mix offensive and defensive cybersecurity abilities.
The CTF challenges are solely crafted for this occasion to reinforce college students’ abilities, getting ready them for real-world cyber occasions. It will embody 18 challenges throughout six classes, together with crypto, pwn, net, forensics, and extra.
Last yr, the University CTF attracted winners from prestigious establishments worldwide, together with Hasso-Plattner Institute, ESNA, and EPFL Lausanne. Reflecting the rising curiosity in upskilling, HTBUniversity CTF skilled an 83% surge in group participation from 2021 to 2022, drawing virtually 5,000 college students.
Teams, comprising 1-30 college students, have the pliability to take part from any location. The CTF accommodates all talent ranges, providing problem classes starting from ‘Beginner to Hard,’ accompanied by hacking workshops and talks the day earlier than. Participants not solely have the chance to win prizes totaling $67,900+, which embody objects and reductions, but in addition have the possibility to earn swag and certificates of attendance for his or her energetic involvement.
Alireza Jolfaei, Program Leader of Master of IT in Cybersecurity, Macquarie University, says: “Hack The Box provides an intuitive and fun environment for top-class CTF events, making it easy for students to join, practice and compete. We have had 8 CTFs organised with HTB already and they have been valuable partners both in terms of developing high-quality custom content and providing professional, direct support before and during the CTF event. It’s proven to be an extremely effective way of keeping students engaged, with gamified approaches to practical study and friendly competition — all of which contribute to their employability on graduation.”
Registrations are actually open, enroll right here.
About Hack The Box
Hack The Box is a number one gamified cybersecurity upskilling, certification, and expertise evaluation platform enabling people, companies, authorities establishments, and universities to sharpen their offensive and defensive safety experience. Launched in 2017, Hack The Box brings collectively the biggest international cybersecurity group of greater than 2m platform members and is on a mission to create and join cyber-ready people and organizations by extremely partaking hacking experiences that domesticate out-of-the-box pondering. Offering a totally guided and exploratory abilities growth atmosphere, Hack The Box is the perfect answer for cybersecurity professionals and organizations to repeatedly improve their cyber-attack readiness by bettering their purple, blue, and purple group capabilities. Rapidly rising its worldwide footprint and attain, Hack The Box is headquartered within the UK, with extra workplaces in Greece and the US.