Back in mid-March, I participated for the second time in the online qualifiers for the Cybersecurity Challenge Belgium—a multi-stage competition where students from across the country tackle a series of demanding cybersecurity assignments. The challenges ranged from solving complex puzzles to simulating large-scale cyber attacks, all designed to raise awareness about cybersecurity and inspire students to consider it as a field of study.
I teamed up with three fellow Howest students: Pepijn Algoedt, Thibo De Vogelaere, and Emiel Delaey. To work efficiently as a team, we set up a Discord server, which became our hub for sharing knowledge and offering help as we worked toward advancing to the next stage.
We dove into a wide variety of challenges covering different aspects of cybersecurity, including web security, mobile, forensics, programming, and more, with tasks ranging in difficulty. With over 350 teams competing, we knew the competition would be though.
After two days of grinding, we managed to rack up a total of 1,323 points, finishing in 141st place. Unfortunately, only the top 40 teams qualified for the next round, so we didn’t make it through. For comparison, in the previous edition, we scored 1,173 points and finished 126th, so it’s hard to say whether we improved or not, given the increased competition.
While we had hoped for a higher ranking, the experience was incredibly rewarding. We learned a lot, strengthened our teamwork, and most importantly, had a great time solving the challenges together. In the end, that’s what matters most!