Last Friday, March 28, fifty-two college students from across New York City and Long Island gathered at New York Institute of Technology’s Long Island campus for ISC2’s fourth annual Capture the Flag (CTF), aka Hack-A-Thon!

ISC2 New York and Long Island Chapter — the International Information System Security Certification Consortium — is a worldwide organization dedicated to enriching and connecting professionals in information security and technology. 

This marks the eleventh hack-a-thon hosted at New York Tech’s Entrepreneurship and Technology Innovation Center (ETIC), and the third in collaboration with ISC2. Michael Nizich, Ph.D., CISSP — ETIC Director and Education Chair for the ISC2 New York and Long Island Chapter — helped lead the event.

Students from nine different colleges—Hofstra, Suffolk Community College, CUNY, Queens College, Yeshiva University, St. John’s University, Adelphi, Farmingdale State College, and New York Tech—excitedly gathered, united by their shared passion for programming and cybersecurity.

When the buzzer sounded, the competition was on! Twenty-six teams typed and decoded at breakneck speed to complete fifteen cybersecurity challenges. According to ISC2, the problems required techniques such as packet analysis, dictionary and rainbow table lookups, brute-force cracking, and message decryption. Bragging rights weren’t the only prize—winners also received free one-year student memberships to the ISC2 NYC and LI chapters. Students relied on a mix of traditional and creative out-of-the-box strategies to solve the challenges.

New York Tech students echoed the excitement, reflecting on the enjoyable experience:

“It was a lot of fun because it was my first hackathon, and going in, I had no idea what to expect. I’m glad I participated and got to learn a lot through each challenge.” — Anagha Sunny, B.S. Computer Science

“I really enjoyed the CTF competition—the challenges were diverse and engaging. I absolutely loved the RSA ciphertext analysis challenge with modular arithmetic; it demanded strong crypto knowledge. The thrill of solving problems and collaborating with others made the experience fun and rewarding!” — Neethu Thalappan Koroth, M.S. Computer Science 

New York Tech community congratulates the five winning teams on their excellence in cybersecurity and applauds all students who rose to the challenge.

^{This article was contributed by Sophie Yoakum, Programs & Retention Coordinator, College of Engineering and Computing Sciences.}