Encouraging young students to pursue a career in Cyber Security through a capture the flag workshop

Female scientists remain underrepresented in the field of IT security. The HiddenQuest Workshop seeks to give young people from underrepresented groups the opportunity to engage in the IT security field from a young age. As a follow-up to the successful Creative.Minds Workshop from the past years, HiddenQuest brought together 25 high school and university students from the FINTA community for an engaging Capture the Flag (CTF) competition designed to introduce them to how computers and networks can be compromised.  

To qualify for the workshop, participants were tasked with solving fun riddles that made them think outside the box and introduced them to the world of IT Security. “The tasks included decoding passwords to gain access to admin accounts, experimenting in the command line, scripting in python and performing a guided SQL injection. The goal was to test the participants' motivation and dedication to solving these tasks and learning something new.” said Johanna Schenkel, one of the instructors at the workshop. “Thinking outside of the box, being able to teach oneself complex topics and familiarizing oneself with new content challenge after challenge, that's what it's all about. And this skill is not only valuable in the CTF-context, but also in real-life.” added Gina Muuss, the other workshop instructor. 

In addition to the practical exercises, participants had a mentorship session featuring female experts from academia and industry who discussed their journeys to building a successful career in IT Security.

The workshop was organized in collaboration among female colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy (MPI-SP) and the FluxFingers Capture the Flag team. We are grateful for the support offered by CASA, GDATA and Secida.