Students against cyber threats

What would you do if Europe’s energy grid is attacked? Maybe the better question is: What can you do? On which laws and powers within the EU can you rely? The international Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge asks teams of four students (and a coach) to answer these questions. In an evolving, fictitious but realistic scenario, they are tasked with finding and presenting practical responses to a major cyberattack striking Europe. Accordingly, all recommendations have to be both technically founded as well as politically well-versed.

Just like in the real world, there’s no certainty, no clear “bad guy” and no single right decision. Yet teams are required to make clear choices and to differentiate between black and white in this grey area. At the end of each of the three rounds, every team has to present and justify all their recommendations. They are judged by a panel of experts from industry, public institutions and academia. This judgment also includes a Q&A session in which they have to defend their proposals and answer potentially unforeseen questions. Oratory skills are therefore needed just as much as technical understanding and political expertise.

The challenge presents an opportunity for students to apply their skills to a real-world problem and to work in a multidisciplinary team. "It was an invaluable experience participating in the Cyber 9/12 Challenge", says Alina Gäumann from the ETH Team Phoenix. Gäumann, who is studying for her Master's in Comparative and International Studies at ETH Zurich, appreciated working as part of a team. "I particularly valued the exchange with my three teammates. They taught me a lot about technical insights into cybersecurity, and we also enjoyed working together to prepare for the challenge."

Practice and advice for ETH Zurich teams

Teams need to be well prepared to stand a chance against the international competition. And this is exactly what the Cyber Group – ETH Student Initiative set out to do. With the help of ETH Zurich and industry sponsors, we have been actively preparing five student teams to face the other contenders. Training started as early as February this year and consisted of weekly four-hour sessions. An expert, either from industry, public institutions or academia, led each session, allowing the teams to ask for hands-on advice as well as learn more about how cybersecurity works in practice. “How (if ever) can you be sure that a specific nation carried out a cyberattack?” and “When is a military response to a cyberattack permissible?” were just two of the many questions asked during these sessions. But as already mentioned, knowledge of the subject alone is not enough. To form proper teams, we also had team-management and communication sessions as well as oratory training to ensure that every team could interact effectively both internally and externally.

Still, we wanted to let our teams feel the heat of the competition before 2 July. To give them some early presentation experience, we organised two “dry runs” where each team had the chance to present their ideas in a realistic competition environment. This included tough time constraints and two expert panels consisting of ETH professors, cyber policy and communication experts as well as cyber specialists from industry.

Students helping students

The Cyber Group – ETH Student Initiative was founded just two semesters ago by seven ETH students. After partaking in last year’s competition, we realised that while the Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge was an excellent opportunity to grow and challenge yourself in the field of cybersecurity, the experience was not exactly smooth. It was hard to find sponsors and even harder to connect with the right experts in the field. Our goal was to reduce these hurdles for future students by providing not only financial support but also a complete training plan. To interest a wider audience, we also started a series of talks, called OpenPorts, where we invited household names in the field of cybersecurity and policy to tell ETH students about cybersecurity in practice.

“I am incredibly proud of what we have achieved in such a short amount of time,” says Jelena Mihajlovic, one of the co-founders of Cyber Group. “The support and interest we received both from ETH and the industry really helped and motivated us to push through any obstacles and create amazing events.”  

Professor Kenny Paterson, head of the Applied Cryptography Group at the Department of Computer Science, supports the initiative. “It’s great to see this student-led organisation coming together to prepare so carefully for the Cyber 9/12 competition. This will sharpen the ETH teams for the competition itself", he says. "But it also really helps the student participants develop a broad range of skills extending beyond the standard curriculum that they would normally encounter at ETH."