MCAST HackSpace organised the 2022 HackSpace Challenge on the 20th April 2022, at the newly opened MCAST Resource Centre. It was the first event of its type targeting mainly students from MCAST IICT who are interested in cybersecurity both from a practical and a research angle. The event was set out as two quick-moving sessions and around 20 students attended.

The first session, led by representatives from CyberFish, was a scenario based on the experience of the Incident Response Team at MoneySafe Bank, a fictitious bank facing the very real threat of ransomware. The session started with some suspicious events, steadily pointing towards a developing malicious ransomware cyber-attack. Playing the scenario, the students were made to address each event in a short time, after considering the technical, organisational, and professional challenges. This was a learning process as they had to make key assessments, decisions, and recommendations to manage the demands of the panicked clients, the public and media, financial regulators and data protection authorities, investigatory authorities, and international information-sharing networks among other challenges. The collaboration between MCAST HackSpace and CyberFish has been growing over the past months, and we plan to strengthen this relation even further in the near future with different projects being considered.

The second session was more technical and saw representatives from CyberSecurity Malta and MITA walk the students through the process of identifying and investigating malware using real-world examples that they encounter during their work. It was followed by an introduction to the National Cyber Security Challenge Qualifier where students learned what the challenge entails and what is required. They were introduced to the Hacking-Lab Cyber Range where they can carry out hacking challenges in preparation for the European Cyber Security Challenge in Vienna (September 2022).

MCAST HackSpace would like to thank our sponsors the eSkills Malta Foundation and MCAST for supporting us.