Carnegie Mellon's hacking competition inspires thousands of kids to pursue a career in cybersecurity

Daniel Tkacik

Nov 1, 2018

Over 27,000 students participated in this year's picoCTF cybersecurity competition – which ended October 12 – shattering records from previous years. Of the 14,000 US-based student players eligible for prizes, nearly two-thirds of them claimed that they're "more interested in pursuing a career in cybersecurity" as a result of playing picoCTF, according to a post-competition survey.

"Inspiring kids to pursue a career in cybersecurity is the first step in solving the cybersecurity talent shortage," says Marty Carlisle, picoCTF's education lead and a teaching professor in Carnegie Mellon's Information Networking Institute.

A team named "1064CBread," from Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta, CA, is this year's picoCTF champion. The team has now won picoCTF a total of four times: every picoCTF competition since the inaugural competition in 2013.

As per tradition, the winning team will attend an awards ceremony at Carnegie Mellon in late November.

During a two-week period beginning September 28, thousands of teams around the world attempted to hack, decrypt, reverse-engineer, and do anything necessary to solve 109 computer security challenges created by Carnegie Mellon’s internationally-acclaimed hacking team, the Plaid Parliament of Pwning. Anyone could sign up and participate, but only United States students in grades 6-12 were eligible for prizes.

According to a post-competition survey completed by more than 1,000 of the US-based student players, 30 percent of students had no prior experience in hacking and/or cybersecurity. Fifty-seven percent of students said they had "a little bit" of prior experience, meaning nearly 90 percent of students who participated had little to no prior experience in cybersecurity.

Inspiring kids to pursue a career in cybersecurity is the first step in solving the cybersecurity talent shortage.

Marty Carlisle, picoCTF's education lead and a teaching professor in Carnegie Mellon's Information Networking Institute

 "That's really our goal," says Carlisle. "We want to encourage kids who haven't heard of or are relatively new to cybersecurity that this is something they can do – something they might be good at and could potentially build a career out of."

Participants' experiences were very positive, with nearly 90 percent of all survey respondents saying they would recommend playing picoCTF next year.

Shown below are the top 10 winning teams in picoCTF 2018 (teams with the same number of points were ranked according to the time in which those teams gained that many points):

 

  1. 1064CBread - 35,135 pts
    Dos Pueblos High School, Goleta, CA
  2. Stallman’s Recycle Plant - 34,385 pts
     Suncoast Community High School, Riviera Beach, FL
    Spring-Forward Senior High School, Royersford, PA
    West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North, Plainsboro Township, NJ
  3. ihscyber2 - 32,585 pts
    Interlake High School, Bellevue, WA
  4. Diesel Locomotive - 32,585 pts
    Liberal Arts and Science Academy, Austin, TX
  5. redpwn - 32,485 pts
    Scarsdale High School, Scarsdale, NY
    Interlake High School, Bellevue, WA
    Soundview Prep, Yorktown Heights, NY
    Whitefish Bay High School, Whitefish Bay, WI
    Homeschool, PA
  6. West - 31,685 pts
    Plano West Senior High School, Plano, TX
  7. tjcsc - 31,685 pts
    Thomas Jefferson, Alexandria, VA
  8. pearl - 30,835 pts
    Montgomery Blair High School, Silver Spring, MD
  9. cppio - 30,835 pts
    West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North, Plainsboro Township, NJ
  10. Point Mass - 30,835 pts
    Liberal Arts and Science Academy, Austin, TX