CSAW: Students exhibit hacking talent at IIT-Kanpur

Kanpur: Cyber Security Competitive event— CSAW (Cyber Security Awareness Worldwide), organised in cooperation with New York University and other centres, commenced at IIT-Kanpur on Wednesday evening.

IIT-K director Prof Abhay Karandikar inaugurated the event. On the occasion, the institute also signed MoUs with Data Security Council of India (DSCI) and Schneider Electric India.

The keynote speech was delivered by senior cyber security consultant -Asia Pacific, Schneider Electric, Dinesh Gianchandani.

Head of the department, computer science and engineering Prof Sandeep Shukla said that every year in the first week of November CSAW competition is conducted in cooperation with New York University, Mexico, Israel, France, Tunisia and other countries at the same time.

The participants from India come to IIT-Kanpur and first preliminary tests are conducted in August and September. The finalists of this competition come to IIT-K to take part in 36-hour long continued hacking titled ‘Capture The Flag (CTF)’.

“The participants earn the points for hacking the target given to them. In an applied research event, teams present their research before the judges while in Embedded Security Challenge teams hack the Embedded Security System. This time the students had to hack the RFID system. Every year different hacking challenges are offered to the participating teams. Faculties from IIT-Ropar, IIT-Bhilai, IISc and other institutes judge these events”, said Prof Shukla.

“An Industrial Hacking workshop has also been organised for industrial experts”, he added.

Before the event director, IIT-K signed two MoUs. “The IIT-K signed a MoU with Data Security Council. The institute will be partner in the Centre of Excellence for Cyber Security to be set up in Noida. The council has even been granted funds by ministry of electronics and telecommunications for the project,” said Prof Shukla.

Meanwhile, hacking contest will commence from Thursday morning and will continue till mid-day Friday. Teams from various institutes and universities will take part in the event.

An industrial security workshop for industry engineers and academics will also be held on Friday. Also an Industrial Control System hacking contest will take place on Friday.

Teams from IIT-Kharagpur, IIT-Gandhinagar, IIT-Madras, IIT-Dharwad, IIIT-Allahabad, Cochin University of Technology will compete in applied research competition, and embedded security challenge.