A team of four students from SMU School of Information Systems have taken the first runner-up position at the EY Asia-Pacific Hackathon held in Hong Kong on 3 March 2019.

Team TankBellCurve, comprising Winston Ho Min Kit, Toh Zi Jie, Sim Cher Boon and Tan Kee Hock, walked away with HK$10,000, after beating six other teams in the finals. The teams hail from universities in Australia, Hong Kong and Malaysia.

A total of 24 teams from the Asia Pacific region took part in the preliminary round which was held online from 10 - 20 January 2019. The participating teams were given challenges that tested their fundamental and technical competency in Linux systems and Windows systems. They were required to penetrate systems within a simulated corporate environment. For each successful milestone, the teams would ‘capture’ a flag which signifies that a certain system within the network has been successfully penetrated. Each flag will earn the team points; the further the team burrows into the system, the more points will be awarded for each flag captured.

Eight teams with the highest points, including Team TankBellCurve, entered the finals, which was held in Hong Kong on 3 March 2019. Similar to the preliminary round, the finalist teams were tested on their skills in penetrating Windows and Linux systems, but the level of difficulty had been raised significantly, which required the teams to have a good understanding of web application, computer networks, cryptography, and operating systems in order to locate and exploit a vulnerability.

Prior to the finals, Team TankBellCurve discussed the role of each team member, the flow of the competition, conducted simulations on what they might come up against, what actions to take, and how much time to allocate to each task.

Recounting the challenges the team encountered during the competition, Cher Boon said the teams were given 10 days during the preliminary round to locate the vulnerabilities, capture the flags and accumulate as many points as possible. However, the finalist teams were only given 7.5 hours. “Therefore, speed was critical. There were times when we had difficulties finding vulnerabilities within systems, as they were well hidden, or it was a vulnerability that our team had never come across before.”

Kee Hock shared that practise and more practise were key to the team’s good performance at the competition. “We are grateful for the strong support from SIS which gave us access to the necessary resources to hone our skills in Windows systems, Linux systems, Cryptography, and Web Application. Apart from the hard skills, soft skills such as effective communication, building camaraderie within the team, being a listener and a proactive attitude also played a huge part in our team’s success. Last but not least, we learnt that even when presented with a tough challenge in a time-sensitive situation, it is important to keep calm and stick to the plan we had decided upon, and to trust that our teammates will do their part to ensure the task assigned will be done in time,” added Kee Hock.

Caption: (L-R) Toh Zi Jie, Sim Cher Boon, Winston Ho and Tan Kee Hock from SMU School of Information Systems was the only team from Singapore in the finals at the EY Asia-Pacific Hackathon.