On 13, 14, and 15 May, the fourth open programming and computer security competitions VrnCTF-2022 were held at the Faculty of Computer Sciences of VSU. The organisers of the competition were the Faculty of Computer Sciences of VSU, Zhukovsky and Gagarin Air Force Academy, and international non-governmental organization “Association of Administrators of Information Security Services”.
The opening ceremony of the competition was attended by Lilia Podoprikhina, Deputy Head of the Department of Digital Development of the Voronezh Region, Yuri Bubnov, Vice-Rector of VSU for Strategic Administrative Management, Alexander Krylovetsky, Dean of the Faculty of Computer Sciences of VSU, Viktor Minin, CTF movement coordinator in Russia and Chair of the board of the international non-governmental organization “Association of Administrators of Information Security Services”, and Sergei Budnikov, research fellow of the Federal Service for Technical and Export Control of Russia, Professor at the Department of Automated Control Systems and Information Security of Voronezh Air Force Academy.
The student competitions lasted two days: the first day was dedicated to the Olympiad on sports programming (individual classification) and on the second day the team CTF Task-Based tournament on information security was held. For the first time in the region, CTF Task-Based team competitions on information security were organised for schoolchildren.
Computer security competitions are conducted using the international Capture the Flag (CTF) rules. The teams competed in a game and acquire and demonstrate their skills in informatics and information security. The tasks included the following categories:
- Forensic: computerised forensic analysis
- Recon: searching for information on the Internet, intelligence
- Crypto: cryptography
- Web: searching and using web security vulnerabilities
- Misc: miscellaneous (all areas of computer security)
The tasks were verified by the contest system on the website of the competition. The result of the correct solution of the task was a “flag”. The results were sent to the website verification system and the team got a point for each correct answer. The results were then displayed in a table.
The assignments were developed and technical support at VrnCTF was provided by students from the Faculty of Computer Sciences, the winners of VrnCTF from last year under the leadership of Dmitry Solomatin, the leading specialist of the GK Informsvyaz, Deputy Dean for Student Affairs at the Faculty of Computer Sciences, senior lecturer at the Department of Programming and Information Technologies at the Faculty of Computer Sciences. The coordinator of the competition was Veronika Garshina, Associate Professor at the Department of Information Procession and Protection Technologies.
This year, over 300 students and schoolchildren took part in the programming competitions. 34 teams from 14 universities participated in the student CTF competition. The school CTF was attended by 23 teams from 25 schools from Voronezh and other cities. Some of the participants competed in person, others took part in the event online.
Among the student teams, teams from the Faculty of Computer Sciences of VSU took first and second places. Third place was taken by a team from the Russian Air Force Military Educational and Scientific Centre “Air Force Academy”. The results of the competitions can be found on the website of the Faculty of Computer Sciences.
“The Faculty of Computer Sciences trains highly qualified specialists in the area of information security. VrnCTF competitions, which have already become traditional, allow our students to acquire additional competencies in this important field, to attract to the area talented students, and starting with this year, schoolchildren. I express my great gratitude to a large team of like-minded people who organised and conducted this event, to Viktor Minin, Head of the board of the “Association of Administrators of Information Security Services”, for his invaluable contribution to the development of the CTF movement in the region and at VSU, and also to our partner IT companies for their support: Federal Service for Technical and Export Control of Russia, AO NPO Infobezopasnost, OOO TEKHNOMARKET, AO Bezopasnost Informatsionnykh Tekhnologiy i Komponentov, ZAO Inline Group Centre, DSR Corporation, League of Digital Economy, AO IK Informsvyaz-Chernozemye, AO Neoflex Consulting, Blinchik, a network of mobile fast food restaurants, OOO Angely IT, AO Severstal-Infokom, and GK Zdorovy rebyenok,” said Alexander Krylovtsky, Dean of the Faculty of Computer Sciences.
