Challenge the Cyber (WHY2025)

Challenge the Cyber is a foundation that actively fosters security skills in young hackers (<25 y). In this talk a couple of our (former) participants will share their experience and talk about the varieties of events that the foundation runs throughout the year and how you can prepare and participate. This includes the yearly CTF, a Cyber bootcamp, recurring training events with CTF team Superflat and the participation at the European Cybersecurity Challenge. There's an overall shortage of cyber security experts. Challenge the Cyber (CTC) is the foundation that actively fosters security skills in young people and works on closing the gap between the need of experts in companies and talented young people who want to become these experts. CTC run a national hacking competition (CTF) with roughly 120 participants each year. The best (30-40) performers are then invited to a week long bootcamp in the summer in which highly technical workshops are given, a lot of attention is spent on team building and eventually a team of 10 players is selected for the European Cyber Security Challenge (ECSC). At ECSC team NL is supported again by CTC. Next to the competition there are side events where anyone can participate, such as playing CTFs with team Superflat. All in all, young people develop and progress through the years to our absolute elite in cyber security. (No, I'm not exaggerating here. We've got zero days as proof :D ) The presentation will tell all that and more but the story will be told with anecdotes by active participants and volunteers of the foundation. They will give an inspiring insight into the world of the young star hackers and their journeys throughout CTC. Licensed to the public under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ about this event: https://program.why2025.org/why2025/talk/8VF3QU/