Hacking boosts students' cybersecurity skills

Article By Jamie Yap , ZDNet Asia on September 29, 2011.

Computer hacking skills should be taught to cybersecurity students to "know the enemy" and ensure they will be equipped to effectively prevent and defend against attacks in the real world. But academia and security experts add that schools must emphasize law and ethics so students "don't cross the line" and misuse their hacking abilities.

Liew Chin Chuan, course manager of the Diploma in Infocomm Security Management (DISM) at Singapore Polytechnic (SP), said as part of the course curriculum, students learn about hacking techniques--which are taught in the context of understanding how hacking attacks are carried out, and the countermeasures that can be put in place to prevent the attacks.

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GovWare Singapore Cyber Conquest

On 27th September from 8am to 5pm, over twenty teams from various Institute of Higher Learning including Singapore Polytechnic (DISM), National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Management University and other polytechnics came together at Suntec Singapore International Convention & Exhibition Centre level 3 and took part in a educational and yet fun-filled on-site hacking competition - GovernmentWare 2011 Singapore Cyber Conquest (SCC).

For this year's Govware Singapore Cyber Conquest event, the Ministry of Home Affairs and Image-Engine have partnered with ThinkSECURE Pte Ltd to bring their unique AIRRAID(tm) IT-security tournament brand and format to the table to make this year's Singapore Cyber Conquest event the "AIRRAID(tm) Edition"! [from govware.sg]

All teams starting with zero points initially

Everyone working on their primary and secondary tasks

It is a FULL-BLOWN STORYLINE-BASED INTEGRATED WIRELESS, WIRED & APPLICATION SECURITY tournament setup where teams of contenders showcase their skills against a PURPOSE-BUILT, MULTI-SEGMENT, ENTERPRISE-CLASS, WIRELESS + WIRED NETWORK AND WEB/APPLICATION SERVER INFRASTRUCTURE, the type of infrastructure just like you will find in real-world organizations! [from govware.sg]

The competition was very intense throughout the whole game and at one point it was as if each team's score took turn to climb. The contest over the first three positions was especially fierce towards the end of the game as the ranking just took one unexpected turn after another while the highest score was constantly being refreshed.

The in-game ranking about 40 minutes before ending

Contestants engrossed in solving the last bonus quiz

The final ranking of SCC 2011

In the end, one of our SP DISM team "BPC" managed to get into the top three positions. By and large it was a helpful, memorable and eye-opening experience for every student participant from DISM.

At the end of the day DISM course manager Mr Liew Chin Chuan commented on the game: "It was a good effort from all of you! I hope everyone had fun and enjoyed the competition. We will learn from this experience and emerge as stronger teams in the next event!"

DISM SIG Training Workshop

Over the past few weeks during holiday, some year 3 seniors have conducted training workshops as part of the DISM SIG (Special Interest Group) activities, to better prepare the junior members in the course for the upcoming competitions such as the Singapore Cyber Conquest and Hack In The Box in Malaysia.

A year 3 student demonstrating a Directory Traverse Attack

Topics and skills covered in the series of workshops comprise of pentest foundamentals, site footprinting, general web application security, sql injection, directory traverse, cross site scripting, cookie tampering as well as usage of tools like nmap, metasploit and sqlninja.

A few of the graduating seniors such as Ng Zi Kai and Max Chee Hong Kun also shared with the juniors on their experience in taking part in the previous competitions.

Students excited about the opportunities to learn more

Everyone who attended the workshop was eager to study about and practice on the various concepts and techniques taught during the sessions. Some also suggested to organize more of such fun and enriching opportunities in future.

One of the year 2 students Chua Wei Kiat mentioned after a whole day of training: "this is really a fantastic way to spend our holiday time!"

Cyber Conquest participants discussing their strategy

The AIRRAID Edition of Singapore Cyber Conquest which is part of the GovernmentWare 2011 is taking place tomorrow (27th Sep) on level 3 of Suntec Singapore International Convention & Exhibition Centre from 9am to 5pm. Let us wish our teams from DISM all the best and have a fruitful journey at the end of the day.

iPhone Forensics Workshop

20 Sep 2011. A group of DISM lecturers and 3 DISM students attended a workshop on iPhone Forensics at Singapore Polytechnic. The workshop was conducted by external party and it was a fruitful workshop.

The partipants had learnt the  methods for recovering evidence, personal data and corporate assets from the iPhone. The workshop provided hands-on experience of recovering and processing evidence via forensic examination of both an iPhone and an iPhone 3G.

DMIT School Retreat

16 Sep 2011. DISM lecturers joined other colleagues in the school of DMIT to attend the annual staff retreat at the Fort Canning Park. It was a fun-filled event and the team building activities had helped to bond the staff together in a relax,  comfortable and creative atmosphere.

CEH/CHFI Examination

7 Sep 2011. Congratulations to the following DISM who took and passed the CEH/CHFI exam on 7 Sep 2011.

1. LI ZHIXIONG
2. TAY JIE HAO
3. YAN CHAN MIN OO
4. LEE BING QUAN JONATHAN
5. BARNABAS TAN SHENG EN
6. CHAI WAI AIK ZANDER
7. LIM JUN HONG
8. NG ZI KAI
9. CHEE HONG KUN
10. FUN HAO XIANG LLEWELYN