HR4RS stamp
Mercedes Rodriguez Loeb
La National Cyberspace Challenge League is an Internal Security initiative to value university talent from a multidisciplinary perspective. For this, the participants have to demonstrate that they are capable of resolving a real incident and technical ability, regulatory compliance, crisis communication, collaborative awareness and the defense of the work before an evaluation court are valued.
The objective of this competition is to promote a true culture of cybersecurity to deal with the threats that society faces in the cyber environment, as well as visualize and attract the talent of young people, empower it and encourage teamwork.
The winners of this edition were Raúl Martín Santamaría, Sergio Pérez Peló, Isaac Lozano Osorio and Javier Yuste Moure, four PhD students at the URJC, accompanied by Jakub Jan Luczyn, a double degree student also at the University. They all make up the Heappies team.
Most of the team are part of the research group GRAPH belonging to the Higher Technical School of Computer Engineering of the URJC and have participated in the project of the ministry CYNAMON Cybersecurity, Network Analysis and Monitoring for the next generation Internet.
The students learned about the existence of the event thanks to the fact that it was being widely publicized both on networks and in television and press media, while it is sponsored by many leading companies at the national level. This is the second time they have participated since last year they failed to qualify in the semifinal phase.
The members of Heappies decided to participate in the National Cyber League because, in addition to studying, they like to be part of challenges that bring them closer to the world of work in their sector. Since they started the Degree they have participated in contests such as the SWERC, the AdaByron and the HashCode. "Cybersecurity seems to us to be a leading field, where competitions are very fun and since then we have been competing in most of the contests in which we can participate," says Isaac Lozano.
The competition takes place in three phases: a qualifying round, the semifinal and the final. This year due to the coronavirus they have all been carried out electronically.
In the qualifying phase, the participants, more than 700, have to overcome a series of technical, legal or communication challenges in two hours. With each test, the teams obtain a series of points objectively and those with the highest score will become part of those classified for the semifinal.
In the semifinal, the time to solve the problems is four hours and the result of the exercise divided by the time used to obtain the position of each participating group is taken into account.
In this phase, the classifieds are supported by a group of experts from each field who provide documentation and direct information with the organization.
Finally, in the final test, they have to solve legal, technical, communicational and collaborative awareness complications. The finalists have to present their results to a Court who awards 20% of the grade.
The URJC team after the last phase was among the three best positioned teams and in defense they got the first place with a difference of almost 400 points compared to the second classified.
Being considered the best of the edition, they have obtained a study trip to Shenzhen and nearly €6.000 in computer equipment.
The winners thank the mentors, the organization for promoting this type of activity and the GRAFO research group for all the support they received to become the winners.