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We’re thrilled to announce that UBC’s cybersecurity team has taken first place at the 2025 BCNET Cybersecurity Capture the Flag (CTF) competition — demonstrating incredible technical skill, creativity, and teamwork. 

The annual BCNET CTF is no ordinary competition — it’s a fast-paced, brain-teasing gauntlet of security challenges across areas like cryptography, steganography, web vulnerabilities, encoding/decoding, and open-source intelligence (OSINT). Teams compete to solve puzzles, uncover hidden clues, and earn points on a live scoreboard over 48 hours. 

UBC’s cyber crew didn’t just rise to the challenge — they dominated. 

Due to team size limits, our four participants registered as two separate teams — but competed with a united front. Through real-time collaboration, shared problem-solving, and years of collective experience working together in real-life cyber response, they solved every challenge in just 8 hours — well ahead of the competition. 

"We were in sync from the start,” said one team member. “It was great to apply our everyday communication and problem-solving skills to something this dynamic and fun."

The secret weapon? Teamwork. 

UBC’s cybersecurity professionals solve real-world privacy and security challenges together every day. That experience made them a well-oiled machine, and it translated perfectly into the fast-paced CTF environment. 

“It really reinforced how effective our day-to-day collaboration is. We already have the tools and trust in place to tackle complex problems together — even when they’re outside the regular scope of work.” 

One of the most memorable moments came when the team tackled a sneaky challenge called Culinary Conundrum. Armed with only a picture of a dish, they had to scour the web to find the article it was featured in — and identify the head chef. 

Another favorite? A visual puzzle where colored squares hid a secret message — decoded by extracting hex color codes and translating them into ASCII characters. 

UBC’s winning team, aptly named Revenge of the Vengeance, climbed to the top of the scoreboard and held their lead — surpassing last year’s champions, who initially had a massive lead of 1000 points. That final puzzle had a tricky twist: a typo in the clue that could have thrown them off. But the team spotted it, adapted, and cracked the solution — securing the win.  

“Revenge complete,” one team member joked. 

Next year? They plan to do it all over again — only faster. 

Congratulations to the UBC cyber team for this major win and for representing UBC with such style, skill, and spirit! 

 

BCNET is next week from April 1-3, 2025! We want to wish all attending an insightful experience filled with new learning, valuable connections and innovative ideas.

There will be a significant number of presenters from UBC, featuring topics like AI, data governance, automation and cybersecurity. Larry Bouthillier (Director, Extended Learning) and Paul Soo (Associate Director, Organization Learning & Leadership Development, UBC HR ) will also be debuting UBC IT's AI training framework (a collaboration between UBC IT, HR and Extended Learning), and introducing the launch of the UBC AI Professionals Certificate Program offered by Extended Learning in their session Empowering Staff: Designing an AI Training Program for a Smarter Campus.

A special shout out to all our UBC presenters next week - best of luck as you share your expertise to inspire the community. We look forward to the great conversations and collaborations that will come from this event.

View the full list of BCNET presenters