Cyber Battle 2025-2026
This weekend I took part in the qualifying round of Cyber Battle.
I also entered last year.
Last year I was about halfway through my Cert III in IT.
This year I am almost finished the Cert IV in Cyber Security.
It's a capture-the-flag (CtF) type "hacking" competition, with a variety of problems to solve across OSINT, Forensics, Exploits, Networking, etc. Problems may be as simple as finding a flag hidden in directory somehow, or figuring out a way to find a message hidden in the frames of a seemingly innocuous video file, right through to seeing what kind of data you can salvage from a simulated ransomware attack.
Last year my team of 3 managed to capture NO flags.
This year my team managed 10! With 8 of them being found by myself!
800% improvement! (ha)
I've been thinking about the difference a year makes - because, although obviously I've been studying the field, we do not really learn a lot about these sorts of things in class.
So I feel like the main difference is that I NOW know WHAT I'm looking for, and WHERE to find it. Moreso, anyway.
And that feels like a big win.
-OPC, 190526