PRESS RELEASE
Hack The Field (HTB), the main gamified cybersecurity upskilling, certification, and expertise evaluation platform, is saying its fifth annual international College Seize The Flag (CTF) competitors that can happen from December 8 to 10, 2023. Focusing on college college students and better training, the CTF marks a pivotal second for the following era of cyber professionals amidst a staggering 4 million expertise scarcity, aiming to upskill college students with the most recent methods to outpace cyber-criminals.
College students Flip to Assets Exterior of a Conventional Curriculum
The CTF additionally comes as HTB releases new analysis involving 2,800 college college students who actively use the HTB platform. In line with 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 expertise, 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 Field, says: “Arms-on studying experiences are now not non-obligatory however a necessity alongside college curricula. The pattern of hiring based mostly solely on levels has been slowly fading in 2023, and it will assist reduce the pink tape holding again an untapped pool of extremely expert cyber expertise ready within the wings.”
“It is essential to equip the following era with cutting-edge expertise, enhancing their educational efficiency whereas aligning them with real-world cyber threats earlier than they enter the workforce. Up to now yr, we’ve seen menace actors go above and past, so we will not afford for graduates to be unprepared for real-world threats. That is why 2023 would be the first time we embrace offensive and defensive challenges, creating well-rounded cyber professionals who can out-pace cybercriminals.”
Constructing Offensive and Defensive Abilities for the Actual World
This yr’s CTF will empower college students to reinforce offensive and defensive expertise, constructing on HTB’s enlargement into defensive safety. This twin proficiency is extra essential than ever, on condition that HTB’s analysis revealed 60% of pros are actually pursuing hybrid careers that mix offensive and defensive cybersecurity expertise.
The CTF challenges are completely crafted for this occasion to reinforce college students’ expertise, making ready them for real-world cyber occasions. It should embody 18 challenges throughout six classes, together with crypto, pwn, net, forensics, and extra.
Final yr, the College 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 nearly 5,000 college students.
Groups, comprising 1-30 college students, have the flexibleness to take part from any location. The CTF accommodates all talent ranges, providing problem classes starting from ‘Newbie to Laborious,’ accompanied by hacking workshops and talks the day earlier than. Contributors not solely have the chance to win prizes totaling $67,900+, which embrace gadgets and reductions, but in addition have the prospect to earn swag and certificates of attendance for his or her energetic involvement.
Alireza Jolfaei, Program Chief of Grasp of IT in Cybersecurity, Macquarie College, says: “Hack The Field gives an intuitive and enjoyable setting for top-class CTF occasions, making it straightforward for college kids to affix, follow and compete. We now have had 8 CTFs organised with HTB already and so they have been worthwhile companions each by way of growing high-quality customized content material and offering skilled, direct assist earlier than and in the course of the CTF occasion. It’s confirmed to be an especially efficient approach of maintaining college students engaged, with gamified approaches to sensible examine and pleasant competitors — all of which contribute to their employability on commencement.”
Registrations are actually open, enroll right here.
About Hack The Field
Hack The Field 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 Field brings collectively the biggest international cybersecurity neighborhood of greater than 2m platform members and is on a mission to create and join cyber-ready people and organizations by way of extremely participating hacking experiences that domesticate out-of-the-box considering. Providing a completely guided and exploratory expertise improvement setting, Hack The Field is the perfect resolution for cybersecurity professionals and organizations to constantly improve their cyber-attack readiness by enhancing their pink, blue, and purple group capabilities. Quickly rising its worldwide footprint and attain, Hack The Field is headquartered within the UK, with extra workplaces in Greece and the US.
