By Pia Perthen, Sports Editor
On Saturday, October 22, the competitive hacking team of Saint Leo University—the PenTest club—showed off their computer technology skills and made silver at a recent Capture the Flag (CTF) competition in St. Petersburg, Fla.
A CTF competition consists of different technological challenges based on real-world threat scenarios. This particular competition was organized by Raymond James, an investment bank and financial services company.
Saint Leo was represented by four individuals: Naomi Nash, president of the PenTest club, a senior majoring in computer science; Rob Bryan, a senior majoring in cybersecurity; Jefferson LeVasseur, a senior majoring in cybersecurity, and Evan Frantz, a junior majoring in cybersecurity.
“CTF is a hacking competition, where competitors are analyzing and manipulating a given system to find a ‘flag,’ which is a unique string of letters,” said Nash as she was asked to define this event for readers who may not be familiar with it.
The members of the PenTest club competed at the competition with the help of adviser Dr. Mahn Van Nguyen, assistant professor of computer science. He is working behind the scenes of the PenTest club and gives ideas for various tasks and challenges to complete during the weekly PenTest meetings.
“The main purpose of the PenTest club is for the students to socialize and get to know each other while learning new techniques in cybersecurity,” said Van Nguyen. “Together, they can gain valuable information on how to get a certain system to excel.”
Out of 14 other universities—including the University of South Florida (USF), University of Central Florida (UCF), Florida State University (FSU), University of Florida (UF), Purdue University, and many more—Saint Leo secured second place in the 2022 competition.
The main goal of the competitors was to learn new tools and skills and share them with the other members of the club at the next meeting.
“We wanted to gain experience on how the competitions work, since not one of the competitive team members has competed in-person before,” said Nash.
Nash and Levasseur have competed at this event online previously during COVID-19. However, the other two team members had not had the opportunity to be part of such a competition. Their competition day started at 8:15a.m. with registration, followed by breakfast and other important appointments, with the actual CTF competition beginning at 10a.m. and ended at 4:30p.m.
“My favorite part was probably the first challenge: we had to decipher a compass lock to get the USB stick, which entails further instructions for the competition,” said Frantz. “The toughest part for me was the challenge named Texas, which required knowledge with Wireshark, and we had to decrypt network traffic to expose the credentials of the flag.”
The award ceremony followed immediately after the competition. UF won first place, Saint Leo second, and Purdue secured third place.
“We were curious to see who won but planned to leave right after the announcements,” said Nash. “We were really surprised as they called Saint Leo University out for a podium place; needless to say, we were happy and proud!”
Out of all the great members of the PenTest club, up to five are able to be selected for the CTF competitions. They are chosen by Nash and Dr. Nguyen based on skills, participation, and motivation. This selection seems to have worked out famously, and, for their great success, the team received prize money of $5000; they split it between the four competitors.
“My part of the money will go towards my master’s in cybersecurity, and I believe each of us wanted to donate towards the PenTest club,” said Nash.
The PenTest meets every Wednesday at 6:30p.m. on the fourth floor of the Tapia College of Business. This club, originally named Security club, was founded by a group of students in Spring 2021, which means this is currently the first fall semester for the club.
The club is official; however, it is not yet an official team like eSports at Saint Leo. Still, Nash hopes that this will be changed, especially since they have had great success while competing against other prestigious schools. Anyone who wants to join this computer club can reach out to Nash via email at naomi.nash@email.saintleo.edu.
