The pwngwins team reaches 2nd place in the CTFs competition at BSides Lisbon conference

It was last November 10th, in Lisbon, that the pwngwings team, formed by the 1st year students of M.EIC, Eunice Amorim, Lucas Calvet Santos, José Pedro Ferreira and Sara Marinha, reached the 2nd place in the CTF competition at the Bsides Lisbon 22 conference. When they heard about this competition and the conference from Professor João Pedro Dias, teaching Large Scale Software Development in this Masters’ Degree, the students were curious and excited and went ahead with the registration in the CTF competition that consisted in two parts: the online qualifiers and the CTF event on the first day of the conference, in Lisbon. And it was on this day, against the remaining 9 qualified teams, that pwngwings achieved the excellent result.

Lucas Santos tells us that “participating in this conference was a very enriching experience. Cybersecurity is an area that has always been of special interest to me, and we had the unique opportunity to interact and exchange ideas with several professionals in the field, in a more informal environment, as well as to attend extremely interesting lectures, which touched on new subjects, not covered in our academic path. Furthermore, it was gratifying that we achieved 2nd place in the CTF competition, which took place during the event and proved to be quite challenging.”

Eunice, another of the members of this team even considers that the opportunity was “a real dream”. “Observing that the competition was mostly professionals in the field, it became even more gratifying that we made it. We are very happy and want to continue to bring these joys to our faculty! We thank all the teachers who supported us so that all this was possible!” tells us the student who sees herself working in the future in the area of cybersecurity or microprocessors/iot.

BSidesLisbon is presented as the reference conference in the area of computer security in Portugal. “Participation in this event is an added value for all workers and students in technological areas, as it gives a practical – and technical – view of the type of risks we face today, as well as the existing defense and protection mechanisms” comments João Pedro Dias on the students’ participation in the competition. “The event’s CTF (Capture the Flag) competition appeals not only to the technical, but also to the creative side of the participants in how to overcome security protections and find flaws in systems, and as such I congratulate the pwngwings team for their excellent performance in it!”

+ info on Capture The Flag and bSidesLisbon

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