CRL
Cognitive Research Lab holds white hacker competition for students CognitiveHack Japan 2024
~Opening of awards category for Japanese participants at picoCTF 2024 sponsored by CyLab, Carnegie Mellon University, USA~
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Last year, Cognitive Research Lab Co., Ltd. (Minato-ku, Tokyo, CEO Hideto Tomabechi) became a category sponsor of picoCTF, a hacking contest for middle and high school students developed by Carnegie Mellon University, the world’s No. 1 university in the cybersecurity and AI fields. Due to the great success of 2024, we will be offering a team award for Japan at picoCTF2024, which will be held in March 2024. *Approximately 30 schools will participate in 2023, including Kaisei Junior High School, Komaba Junior High School attached to the University of Tsukuba, Nada Junior High School, Musashi Junior High School, Okage Junior High School, Shibuya Kyoiku Gakuen Makuhari Junior High School, and Gakugei University High School. Cyber threats have become more sophisticated in recent years, and cyber Social demands for discovering and training security personnel are increasing. Students participating in picoCTF will be able to acquire practical skills in cybersecurity by tackling challenges posed by the world’s top hackers in a game-like manner. The participants in this contest, which will be held from March 13th to 27th, are aimed at a wide range of people, from students who have already learned programming and want to test their skills, to students who want to learn hacking techniques from scratch. In addition to competing individually, you can also compete as a team with friends from school club activities or programming classes. By expanding this contest nationwide, Cognitive Research Lab will increase the number of cybersecurity engineers and improve the skills of Japan’s young generation of cybersecurity personnel. *X account: @japanCTF
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Figure from picoCTF2018 screen
Cyber threats are increasing, and the key to discovering and training advanced security personnel is “hacking contest CTF” Cyber threats have become more sophisticated in recent years, including military cyber terrorism at the national level, cyber crimes against crypto assets, etc., and hacking contests against government agencies. Hacking is increasing. There have also been cyberattacks against Japan that are suspected to be related to the recent unrest in Ukraine. In order to respond to national security in an increasingly complex geopolitical environment and economic security, which is also a vital issue, the development of human resources with advanced cybersecurity skills has become an increasingly urgent national task. It is thought that In this social situation, CTF is attracting attention for discovering and developing cybersecurity human resources. CTF is an abbreviation for “Capture-the-Flag” and is a computer security technology competition, also translated as “hacking contest” or “hacker contest”. Participants use their computer science knowledge and skills to perform reverse engineering, code analysis, etc., and compete to find flags hidden inside computers by the organizer. In recent years, CTF has begun to be held all over the world as an educational method to learn about cyber defense and cyber attacks. “PicoCTF” is a hacking contest for junior high and high school students developed by “Carnegie Mellon University,” which ranks first in the world in the field of cybersecurity, to discover and foster the next generation of hackers.Carnegie Mellon University ranks first in the world university rankings in the field of cybersecurity and AI. Ranked #1 (U.S. News & World Report). picoCTF was developed by the University’s Computer Security Research Center (CyLab) for junior high and high school students and has been in operation since 2013. The feature is that it incorporates the idea of gamification. Through picoCTF, contestants can learn about security technology while enjoying the challenges posed by the world’s top hackers as if it were a game, while learning about security technology. “CognitiveHack Japan” is a variety of team awards for Japan, including school awards, junior high school category awards, women’s category awards, etc. Cognitive Research Lab has a category sponsorship agreement with Carnegie Mellon University, and is working to expand picoCTF in Japan. I am. At picoCTF2024, a contest to be held in March 2024, we will open “CognitiveHack Japan 2024” to recognize participants from Japan. CognitiveHack Japan Award – Overall winner 50,000 yen *Among the teams that meet the participation qualifications, a prize of 50,000 yen will be awarded to the team with the highest points in picoCTF2024. Awards can be given in conjunction with the winners in each category.・Winner of the junior high school division: 50,000 yen ・Winner of the high school division: 50,000 yen ・Winner of the university division: 50,000 yen ・Winner of the female division: 50,000 yen
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Figure CognitiveHack Japan 2024 site screen
[Image 4: https://prtimes.jp/i/6328/26/resize/d6328-26-7bceaa543d6ba3a7b08d-5.jpg&s3=6328-26-35cc6c6705ed87542f7ea02aceba4622-1502×2048.jpg] Figure picoCTF site Sponsor list
https://picoctf.org/
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Figure List of CongnitiveHack Japan awards
For students who want to test their skills and learn from scratch, as well as teachers at schools, clubs, and programming classes, how to enter: To participate in this contest, please visit the special domestic website “CognitiveHack Japan”. You will be required to register your team, create an account on this site “picoCTF-CMU Cybersecurity Competition” operated by Carnegie Mellon University, and complete the contest assignments. The registration process is as follows.
Register your username with picoCTF https://play.picoctf.org/login Register for picoCTF2024 https://picoctf.org/
Register on CognitiveHack Japan’s Google form (representative registers all members at once) https://forms.gle/iNaQKb3zqy843ext5 To register for the school award, gather participating teams within the school and have the representative (student) register to participate https://forms.gle/CDJ62QgDpijnWyJC9
Official website: https://cognitivehack-jp.cognitivectf.com/ [Award Qualifications] ・Eligibility: Those 13 years old or older enrolled in Japanese junior high schools, high schools, technical colleges, junior colleges, and university departments (as of the end of March 2024) .Those graduating this spring are also eligible for the award.Teams whose members include foreign nationals enrolled at schools in Japan are also eligible for awards.However, teams whose members include Japanese nationals enrolled at schools overseas are eligible for awards. (Not eligible for awards.) Team composition: Participation must be between 1 and 5 members. All participants do not have to be from the same school (however, the school award will only be awarded if all participants are from the same school) – Participation fee: Free – Anyone who does not fall under the above categories, such as graduate students or working adults, is welcome. (However, you will not be eligible to win.) [Contest schedule] CognitiveHack Japan registration start: February 6, 2024 (Tuesday) PicoCTF registration start: February 1, 2024 (Thursday) (Register until the end of the competition period (possible) picoCTF/CognitiveHack Japan competition period: March 13th to 27th, 2024 (Japan time) The latest information will be sent through the X account (@japanCTF), so please register. ▼Company Profile: Cognitive Research Lab Co., Ltd. Cognitive Research Lab Co., Ltd. was founded in 1988 as one of the few basic research institutes in Japan, at a time when most people in the world still did not know the words “cognitive science” and “cognitive computing.” We are a company that carries out “real” basic research (science) that cannot be found anywhere else, and develops platforms (engineering) that will create a society 50 years from now. CEO Tomabechi completed a doctoral program at Carnegie Mellon University in 1993 (Ph.D. computational linguistics) after completing a Fulbright study abroad program in computer science (artificial intelligence) at Yale University. After working as an assistant in the Department of Computer Science at Yale University, a researcher in the Artificial Intelligence Institute and the Cognitive Science Institute at Yale University, a researcher in the Department of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, a resident researcher at the ATR Automatic Translation Telephone Research Institute, an assistant professor at Tokushima University, and director and foundation at the Just Systems Tokyo Institute. Research Institute Director, Joint Brain Function Research Project Leader at JustSystems, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Expert Committee Member, Information Processing Promotion Council, Ministry of International Trade and Industry, Research Director, Cognitive Research Lab Co., Ltd. Since 2008, he has been a CyLab fellow at Carnegie Mellon University. Since 2019, he has been a C4I&Cyber research professor at George Mason University. From 2014 to 2019, he was joint project leader at Carnegie Mellon University and Self-Defense Force Cyber Command. Currently, he is the chairman and representative director of the Japan Journalists Association, a public interest incorporated association, and the president and representative director of the Japan Foreign Policy Association.
Research achievements etc.
https://www.crl.co.jp/thesis
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More details about this release:
https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000026.000006328.html