UNSW wins Cyber Security Challenge Australia

A team of students from the University of New South Wales will be off to the US Black Hat Security conference in July after winning the annual Cyber Security Challenge Australia (CySCA).

Two other teams from UNSW took out second and third place respectively.

Held over 24 hours from May 7 to 8, 43 teams from universities and TAFEs tested the networks and hardware of a fake company called Synergise cyber security.

Organised by the Australian government, universities and Telstra, CySCA is designed to address common cyber issues.

Telstra chief information security officer, Mike Burgess, wrote in a blog post that CySCA was different to other cyber challenges.

“In my time I’ve seen a lot of cyber challenges, mainly hacking competitions or ‘capture the flag’ activities where the race is on to break, steal, hack or destroy data, but this challenge is different,” he said.

“The teams were required to perform a number of technical tests as well as clearly report on their findings.”

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