In early June, as part of the Eastern Digital Forum Russky MeetUP & Digital Region, the final stage of the "Russian Defense Game - 2023" regional cybersecurity competition was held. 122 teams fr om Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Blagoveshchensk, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Omsk, Tomsk, Orel, Maykop, and Moscow took part in the Tournament. Only 10 of them qualified for the final and competed for prizes.
The NSU IT Department Smiley-from-Telega Team outperformed their rivals and won the gold medal. The team consisted of Boris Petrushev (team captain), Ivan Baksheev, Konstantin Moskalenko, Daria Khaetskaya, Ilya Merzlyakov, and Roman Brek.
NSU team coach Roman Ledebev remarked that, “Such competitions increase literacy in the field of information security from different approaches to software development that are relevant to understanding how data is leaked.”
Cybersecurity competitions are conducted in a Jeopardy format. This has several categories of problems such as web, reverse engineering, cryptography, steganography, etc. Teams choose the problem they want to solve and receive a certain number of points. This is followed by Attack/Defense, wh ere the teams protect their "servers" that host secret "flags". These must be stolen from the opposing team.
Fourth-year student Boris Petrushev commented,
Participation in this kind of competition provides invaluable experience, you can improve your skills and get certificates that can be used to increase your chances of a larger scholarship. It is also a big bonus in applying for scholarships from other companies or for an internship or job.
