Achmad Zaenuri Dahlan Putra (three from left), ITS Information Systems Department student who succeeded in making Indonesia proud through one of the prestigious hacking competitions in the world

ITS Campus News – Achievements on the international stage were once again achieved by students of the Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology (ITS). This time, Achmad Zaenuri Dahlan Putra, a student of the ITS Information Systems Department and his team managed to make a proud achievement as 2nd Place in the Abu Dhabi Digital Authority (ADDA) Capture The Flag event. (CTF) Competition which was held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on 10 – 14 October 2022.

This ITS student himself is trusted as the team leader which consists of four people who come from other universities in Indonesia and abroad. Namely two members from Indonesia and two other members from Vietnam. “The member from Indonesia is a student from National Institute of Technology (ITN) Malang and a software engineer who is an alumnus of the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) class of 2020,” he explained.

The student who is often called Ayik admitted that he got his team from one of the largest CTF communities in the world. This collaborative team won second place in this prestigious event that focuses on hacking. “This is one of our pride because the participants come from all over the world regardless of age and profession,” said Ayik.

Achmad Zaenuri Dahlan Putra (center) with the Good Luck Have Fun (GLHF) team from Indonesia

Before competing in Dubai, Ayik and his team of five people went through the qualification stage first. In the qualification stage, this team succeeded in completing several types of questions. “At that time, the qualifications were done online with the types of questions web exploitation, binary exploitation, reverse engineering, forensic, cryptography, and mobile reverse engineering,” he explained.

With his persistence, his team managed to become one of the five finalists who went to Dubai for the championship. For four days, Ayik and his team competed at the Dubai World Trade Center (WTC) to win the championship. “During the final, we were required to complete more (questions) than the qualification stage and the questions given were even more difficult,” he said.

Pada babak final, tim yang diberi nama Good Luck Have Fun (GLHF) ini bersama tim finalis lainnya harus menyelesaikan soal web exploitation, reverse engineering, forensic, attack defense, lab hacking, dan hardware hacking.

Five finalist teams competing in the ADDA CTF Competition at the World Trade Center (WTC) Dubai, United Arab Emirates

According to Ayik, his team can solve various problems, such as web exploits to obtain data, and create cracked applications by looking for the application program algorithms. “Besides that, I also got some interesting problems, such as breaking into the official website of the Abu Dhabi government which is equipped with high security features,” he added.

Interestingly, Ayik explained that his team had to break into old technology, such as Rotary telephones, to the latest technology, such as breaking into Tesla cars. He argues that this type of problem is difficult to solve compared to other problems. “We have to break into the Tesla car door through its frequency so that the car door can open without a key,” he explained.

In addition to being entrusted with being the team leader, Ayik is tasked with resolving reverse engineering, web exploitation, and cryptography issues. In the future, there are still many prestigious international competitions that must be conquered by him. “One of my dreams is to be able to take part in the Defcon event, the biggest hacking competition in the world,” he said optimistically. (ITS PR)