The CMD+CTRL Cyber Range Hackathon was my very first hackathon. I was thrilled to be there because it is something new and different from what I’m used to, and I did not know anything about hacking.
This event is organized in such a way that professionals as well as beginners can understand what is going on. We had to “hack” into a bank and go through a cheat sheet to know how to make SQL injections or to make changes directly from the URL, which was pretty fun. learned to identify flaws in source codes and manipulate SQL and Java codes. Even though I do not intend to hack anyone/ any page, at least for now, I have learned real life applications of tools/concepts that I studied from books and the internet, like HTML, SQL, Java and Hashing functions.
Knowing that ethical hacking is a great skill in the industry these days, as many businesses have security weaknesses, it was great to get an introduction to this world. Now that I know what actually a hackathon is, I feel more confident about what I know and don’t know, and what should I expect the next time I attend one of these events. I would definitely attend more hackathons, because it is a good way to challenge myself and discover more about computer science in general.
I went to the CMD + CTRL Cybersecurity Hackathon with a group of friends. The hackathon was really fun and learned a lot of programming languages used to develop websites and other online products. At the hackathon, they stated that it was only a beginner hackathon and that they were going to help us throughout the whole event. They said that we were going to use their “cyber range” which is just a fake website with some minimal security that is used to train people in cybersecurity. He first started by giving us a cheat sheet that we could refer back to at any point in the event. The cheat sheet was very helpful and even allowed our group to do things that the event leader did not go over. There was also a cipher part in the hackathon. Instead of Caesar cipher it was Vigenere cipher which has the basic principle of mixing around letters and using a key to decipher it. Some of the people at the event were not beginners and were there for fun. They accumulating many points at the end of the event compared to our group. Some of them had careers in cybersecurity so they knew exactly what they were doing and how to hack into their cyber range. Overall, it was a very fun event and I would gladly go again.
This hackathon was one of the most interesting events I have ever been to. This coordinators for this event called it a “beginner” hackathon. The people who attended the event ranged from college all the way to older, business professionals who wanted to teach their employees cybersecurity skills. At this hackathon, I learned different methods that a person could use to hack into a not-so-secure website. The coordinators had us “hack” our way into a fake banking website. We learned about certain flaws and mistakes programmers can make while creating websites and applications that hackers can use to break into websites. While learning all of this, I was thinking of my own methods that I could use to prevent such events from happening. After attending this very well organized hackathon, I grew more comfortable with stepping out of my comfort zone of looking for mistakes. I learned through this event that every programmer makes their own mistakes, and it’s up to ourselves and team members to look for these errors to make our programs stronger than before. If I had the opportunity to attend this hackathon again, I would. The coordinators were well-versed in their profession and helped anyone who asked for assistance.
Walking into the building, I became super overwhelmed. Everything seemed so fancy and all the people were so professional. I was scared that everyone around me was going to make me feel stupid and that I wouldn’t have the first clue of what to do. Thankfully, this was not the case. The entire hackathon was set up to teach and encourage people like me, who didn’t have the first clue about how to hack a website. I learned so many things, like how I use a URL or how to “Inspect” a page in order to manipulate websites into doing something they were not originally designed to do. I learned about SQL queries and how I can use them to login to a site without needing an actual login. All of these things and more showed me just how vulnerable websites really are. The activity helped me understand that, as a computer science major, I need to be very careful when developing any kind of application or website. There’s an insane amount of ways that you can be vulnerable and if your program does have any vulnerabilities, a skilled hacker can and will exploit that vulnerability. I would 100% attend an activity like this one again, it would be really cool if it was turned into a class, in my opinion at least. It’s hacking and figuring out a big puzzle on your own, with some helpful hints and little bits of information that don’t just give you all the answers, but give you enough so that you can get going on your own.
Going into the event, I didn’t think that I would be able to hack anything or be able to do any of the challenges that they had set up. I thought that I would just be lost the whole time, especially because everyone else who was there seemed like experienced programmers. I thought that I’d barely be able to understand anything about hacking in the 4 hours that the competition lasted for. However, I learned that hacking and cybersecurity is a lot easier to get into than I thought. With the friend I went with, we were able to get 8th place out of 70 people. This event showed me that hacking isn’t really about coding at all. It’s just about understanding backdoors and knowing where to check. While a coding background definitely helps, I’ve learned it’s not really the main component in hacking. I would definitely go to an event like this again because it was really fun and I learned a lot from it. I met a lot of interesting people during the event too which made the experience that much better. It also led to some new inside jokes with the friend that I attended the competition with.
I recently attended the CMD + CTRL Hackathon with a friend of mine. Going into the even I wasn’t sure what to expect but once they explained the challenges that we would have to solve, I honestly thought I wouldn’t be able to do any of them. As the event started I wasn’t really sure what to look for but thankfully we met a stranger who had a lot more experience than us who helped us get started and really understand what to do. Once we sort of got the idea of what to do, it was actually pretty exciting to solve different puzzles and secrets and find out it actually worked. There really wasn’t any coding involved necessarily but it was really interesting to learn about what hacking really is and how people find exploits in websites. Somehow me and my friend with the help of the trusty stranger, ended up placing 8th out of about 70 people in the whole event which is way higher than I ever would have thought we would get. I would go to an event like this again for sure because I loved the puzzle solving and learning on the spot to solve challenges, not to mention the free food.
The CMD+CTRL Cyber Range Hackathon was a great experience for me and my friends as well. It was a hackathon for beginners who aren’t completely aware of how hackathons take place or the content that is necessary to know before solving the problems given in the hackathon. They told us that they would guide us through this process. This hackathon was about hacking into a bank’s website and it taught us about the flaws in the codes of these software systems that the programmers unknowingly committed using which we could successfully hack into it. I learned about SQL queries and how it allows us to access accounts without actually having the credentials to do it. The competition lasted for about 5 hours and there were nearly 75 people participating.
This hackathon taught me a very important lesson which is to look out for mistakes in your code thoroughly before running it because some loop holes can be well exploited by hacking experts which is not safe and illegal. It also taught me the skill and art of ethical hacking where the skill of hacking can be positively used for the betterment of the society and preventing any fraudulent activity. It was a great experience and I would love to attend many more such hackathons. The hackathon was very well organized and it gave us all a great experience.
The CMD+CTRL Cyber Range Hackathon was my very first hackathon. I was thrilled to be there because it is something new and different from what I’m used to, and I did not know anything about hacking.
This event is organized in such a way that professionals as well as beginners can understand what is going on. We had to “hack” into a bank and go through a cheat sheet to know how to make SQL injections or to make changes directly from the URL, which was pretty fun. learned to identify flaws in source codes and manipulate SQL and Java codes. Even though I do not intend to hack anyone/ any page, at least for now, I have learned real life applications of tools/concepts that I studied from books and the internet, like HTML, SQL, Java and Hashing functions.
Knowing that ethical hacking is a great skill in the industry these days, as many businesses have security weaknesses, it was great to get an introduction to this world. Now that I know what actually a hackathon is, I feel more confident about what I know and don’t know, and what should I expect the next time I attend one of these events. I would definitely attend more hackathons, because it is a good way to challenge myself and discover more about computer science in general.
I went to the CMD + CTRL Cybersecurity Hackathon with a group of friends. The hackathon was really fun and learned a lot of programming languages used to develop websites and other online products. At the hackathon, they stated that it was only a beginner hackathon and that they were going to help us throughout the whole event. They said that we were going to use their “cyber range” which is just a fake website with some minimal security that is used to train people in cybersecurity. He first started by giving us a cheat sheet that we could refer back to at any point in the event. The cheat sheet was very helpful and even allowed our group to do things that the event leader did not go over. There was also a cipher part in the hackathon. Instead of Caesar cipher it was Vigenere cipher which has the basic principle of mixing around letters and using a key to decipher it. Some of the people at the event were not beginners and were there for fun. They accumulating many points at the end of the event compared to our group. Some of them had careers in cybersecurity so they knew exactly what they were doing and how to hack into their cyber range. Overall, it was a very fun event and I would gladly go again.
This hackathon was one of the most interesting events I have ever been to. This coordinators for this event called it a “beginner” hackathon. The people who attended the event ranged from college all the way to older, business professionals who wanted to teach their employees cybersecurity skills. At this hackathon, I learned different methods that a person could use to hack into a not-so-secure website. The coordinators had us “hack” our way into a fake banking website. We learned about certain flaws and mistakes programmers can make while creating websites and applications that hackers can use to break into websites. While learning all of this, I was thinking of my own methods that I could use to prevent such events from happening. After attending this very well organized hackathon, I grew more comfortable with stepping out of my comfort zone of looking for mistakes. I learned through this event that every programmer makes their own mistakes, and it’s up to ourselves and team members to look for these errors to make our programs stronger than before. If I had the opportunity to attend this hackathon again, I would. The coordinators were well-versed in their profession and helped anyone who asked for assistance.
Walking into the building, I became super overwhelmed. Everything seemed so fancy and all the people were so professional. I was scared that everyone around me was going to make me feel stupid and that I wouldn’t have the first clue of what to do. Thankfully, this was not the case. The entire hackathon was set up to teach and encourage people like me, who didn’t have the first clue about how to hack a website. I learned so many things, like how I use a URL or how to “Inspect” a page in order to manipulate websites into doing something they were not originally designed to do. I learned about SQL queries and how I can use them to login to a site without needing an actual login. All of these things and more showed me just how vulnerable websites really are. The activity helped me understand that, as a computer science major, I need to be very careful when developing any kind of application or website. There’s an insane amount of ways that you can be vulnerable and if your program does have any vulnerabilities, a skilled hacker can and will exploit that vulnerability. I would 100% attend an activity like this one again, it would be really cool if it was turned into a class, in my opinion at least. It’s hacking and figuring out a big puzzle on your own, with some helpful hints and little bits of information that don’t just give you all the answers, but give you enough so that you can get going on your own.
Going into the event, I didn’t think that I would be able to hack anything or be able to do any of the challenges that they had set up. I thought that I would just be lost the whole time, especially because everyone else who was there seemed like experienced programmers. I thought that I’d barely be able to understand anything about hacking in the 4 hours that the competition lasted for. However, I learned that hacking and cybersecurity is a lot easier to get into than I thought. With the friend I went with, we were able to get 8th place out of 70 people. This event showed me that hacking isn’t really about coding at all. It’s just about understanding backdoors and knowing where to check. While a coding background definitely helps, I’ve learned it’s not really the main component in hacking. I would definitely go to an event like this again because it was really fun and I learned a lot from it. I met a lot of interesting people during the event too which made the experience that much better. It also led to some new inside jokes with the friend that I attended the competition with.
I recently attended the CMD + CTRL Hackathon with a friend of mine. Going into the even I wasn’t sure what to expect but once they explained the challenges that we would have to solve, I honestly thought I wouldn’t be able to do any of them. As the event started I wasn’t really sure what to look for but thankfully we met a stranger who had a lot more experience than us who helped us get started and really understand what to do. Once we sort of got the idea of what to do, it was actually pretty exciting to solve different puzzles and secrets and find out it actually worked. There really wasn’t any coding involved necessarily but it was really interesting to learn about what hacking really is and how people find exploits in websites. Somehow me and my friend with the help of the trusty stranger, ended up placing 8th out of about 70 people in the whole event which is way higher than I ever would have thought we would get. I would go to an event like this again for sure because I loved the puzzle solving and learning on the spot to solve challenges, not to mention the free food.
The CMD+CTRL Cyber Range Hackathon was a great experience for me and my friends as well. It was a hackathon for beginners who aren’t completely aware of how hackathons take place or the content that is necessary to know before solving the problems given in the hackathon. They told us that they would guide us through this process. This hackathon was about hacking into a bank’s website and it taught us about the flaws in the codes of these software systems that the programmers unknowingly committed using which we could successfully hack into it. I learned about SQL queries and how it allows us to access accounts without actually having the credentials to do it. The competition lasted for about 5 hours and there were nearly 75 people participating.
This hackathon taught me a very important lesson which is to look out for mistakes in your code thoroughly before running it because some loop holes can be well exploited by hacking experts which is not safe and illegal. It also taught me the skill and art of ethical hacking where the skill of hacking can be positively used for the betterment of the society and preventing any fraudulent activity. It was a great experience and I would love to attend many more such hackathons. The hackathon was very well organized and it gave us all a great experience.