Author: Francesco Zola / VICOM
In this highly anticipated online cybersecurity Hackathon, 12 participants from internal and external stakeholders, practitioners and students gathered to witness the unveiling of five KINAITICS cybersecurity tools: NeuralStrength (VICOM), URANIE (CEA), SeerBox (PLURIBUS), Social Engineering Detector- SED (ENG) and Penetration Tool (CERTH). These tools are drawn to analyze and detect threats and vulnerabilities at different levels, from the traditional cybersecurity point of view, i.e., traffic analysis, phishing detection, until the attack detection (and mitigation) to sensitive simulation environments or even Machine Learning models, such as cancer detectors.
The event showcased the latest advancements in cybersecurity technology and four tools were further put to the test in intense Capture the Flag (CTF) exercises. In particular, a Jeopardy CTF was built, in which each participant was called to solve challenges belonging to four main use cases (UCs): two related to the healthcare domain, one to finance and one to the process simulation. Each use case was virtualized in a KINAITICS environment (Testbed), i.e., different Virtual Machines were deployed and connected among them to recreate realistic situations such as receiving spam emails in a sensitive environment, protecting an e-commerce platform or simulating a cancer intelligent decision-making system.
The event started with a welcome message by the project leader and with instructions to all the participants about the game rules and how to access the different platforms. Then during the first session, a mentor of each organization presented a short demo of the tools, highlighting their functionalities and their main application. After this round, the game started. The entire game was composed of 17 different challenges split into two sessions of 1h each. Of course, during the connection to the Testbed, several users experienced small delays/issues, but the organizers were able to address the inconvenience without affecting the success of the events.
The event concluded with an awards ceremony to recognize the top-performing participants in the CTF exercises. In particular, this first KINAITICS event saw a close battle between five participants, with the winner scoring 650 points out of the 850 available.
The first KINAITICS cybersecurity hackathon served as an event for the cybersecurity community to come together, exchange knowledge, and explore cutting-edge solutions developed in the project for safeguarding against ever-evolving AI-based threats. As technology continues to advance, such events play a pivotal role in strengthening the global cybersecurity ecosystem, gathering feedback from end users and improving the solutions.
Will you join us? The second KINAITICS Cybersecurity event is planned for next year!
