About IJCO

We are proud to announce that the National University of Singapore (NUS) Centre for Nurturing Computing Excellence (CeNCE) and the Singapore National Cybersecurity R&D Lab (NCL) have partnered with SIMCC and Scholastic Trust foundation Singapore to offer optional Capture the Flag (CTF) workshop as well as CTF Contest, which will be part of the STEAM AHEAD IJCOs for Grades 7 to 12 (Secondary 1 to Junior College 2) contestants.

Prof Tan Sun Teck, President of lOI and 2 key staffs from NCL will be in Shenzhen to organise the INTERNATIONAL JUNIOR CYBERSECURITY OLYMPIAD – Capture the Flag. Training will be conducted by NUS staff and the INTERNATIONAL JUNIOR CYBERSECURITY OLYMPIAD CTF certs will bear NUS CeNCE and NCL crests.

Capture-the-Flag (CTF) is a gamified approach to learning cybersecurity through a fun and captivating training + competition package. Participants’ cybersecurity knowledge and teamwork skills are tested by reinforcing important concepts through challenges written as interactive games and puzzles. CTFs can be used to determine the skill level of participants.

Prior to the competition, trainings and workshops would be conducted to help participants gauge their preparation levels and brush up on the necessary skills to ace the competition challenges. This may be between 4 days to a week, depending on the program structure.

How To Participate

Students will be grouped into teams (usually of 3 members) and assigned virtual machines which have been pre-implanted with vulnerabilities and data they would have to discover.

Teamwork and partnership is strongly encouraged. Submission of the data found (also known as “flags”) will be on a challenge site that will be shared with participants.

Communication with students (especially in the case of international students) will be through a specified chat channel. The chat channel will be monitored by admins 24 hours over the entire CTF duration.

Syllabus for IJCO

• Overview of Cybersecurity
• Cybersecurity in Our Daily Lives
• Case Studies of Real-Life Cyber-Incidents
• Scenarios

Awards

IJCO Individual Awards