BSUIR and hoster.by: joint efforts in training cybersecurity specialists

The Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics hosted the finals of the cybersecurity competition among students - BSUIR Cybersecurity Day. This is the second tournament organized by the HTP resident company hoster.by and BSUIR.

According to Maxim Davydov, first vice-rector of BSUIR, the sphere of cybersecurity continues to attract more and more applicants due to the high demand for specialists, stable income and wide career opportunities. “Practice-oriented training is of particular importance. BSUIR Cybersecurity Day, being a unique platform for professional development, is designed to strengthen the competencies of students. It is planned that the event will be held annually and will contribute to the further development of the industry.”

This year the interest in the tournament grew, so it was held in 2 stages. More than 130 students from BSUIR, BSU, as well as Grodno State University took part in the qualifying round. At this stage it was necessary to fulfill 10 different tasks in the online format. 56 participants successfully coped with it.

The final part of the tournament took place in BSUIR, where hoster.by specialists created a cyberpolygon simulating a real segment of an online store infrastructure. According to the legend, it was hacked, and the participants were to act as digital forensics specialists. The task was to conduct an investigation, find out the sequence of actions of the hacker and collect indicators of compromise. In addition, it was necessary to give answers to the questions in the Capture the Flag format - finding hidden “flags” or lines of code.

The tasks were designed to take into account the most popular cyberattack techniques today. For example, hacking by attempting to determine a password to  public services (RDP), scanning server ports, exploiting a vulnerability in a popular engine, and placing a message from hackers (deface) on the main page of the site.

The winners of the tournament were:

1st place - Nikita Roschupkin, BSUIR, Faculty of information security, 4th year.
2nd place - Vladislav Dubovsky, BSUIR, Faculty of information security, 3rd year.
3rd place - Stanislav Pilipeiko, BSUIR, Faculty of information security, 2nd year.

"Participation in BSUIR Cybersecurity Day is a unique chance to try oneself in situations that are as close to reality as possible,” comments Sergey Povalishev, director of hoster.by. – “By the way, specialists from our cybersecurity center and teams from the largest organizations of the country also regularly compete at cyber exercises. This allows us to keep the bar high for the representatives of one of the most in-demand professions of our time. For our part, we will do our best to make this experience available to young professionals as well.”