Competitions

The Swiss Hacking Challenge organises multiple cyber security competitions in Switzerland. Many of the competitions act as qualifiers for competitions in europe and even worldwide:

Since there are different requirements for each competition, they are explained in detail below.

Events in Switzerland

Swiss Hacking Challenge Qualifier

The Swiss Hacking Challenge Qualifier is an online single player jeopardy capture the flag event that runs for two months every year from March until April. Everybody can participate for free, but players are grouped into the following categories:

• Junior (Swiss citizen, aged 14-20)
• Senior (Swiss citizen, aged 21-25)
• Open

Only players in the junior and senior categories can qualify for further events like the Swiss Hacking Challenge Finals or the SwissSkills.

Swiss Hacking Challenge Finals

The Swiss Hacking Challenge Finals are a two-day, onsite team based jeopardy capture the flag event that is reserved for the top 10 juniors and top 10 seniors. This event is the selection event after which the swiss team gets selected. The swiss team will then compete at the ECSC later in the year.

The Swiss Hacking Challenge pays for the food and accommodation during the stay at the finals.

ICTSkills / SwissSkills Skill 54 Cyber Security

The SwissSkills is the annual swiss championship for professions. SwissSkills features the skill 54: Cyber Security. The SwissSkills acts as a qualifier for the WorldSkills, which are described in more detail below.

International Events

European Cyber Security Challenge (ECSC)

The European Cyber Security Challenge (ECSC) is a huge team based onsite capture the flag event takes place in a different country every year in October. The top 10 players from each country represent their nation in the competition in with over 30 european nations participate. At least 5 players of each team need to be part of the junior category. Usually, there is a jeopardy and an attack/defense component to the competition.

The Swiss Hacking Challenge pays for travel to and from the ECSC as well as for the accommodation during the event.

The ECSC is not just a competition but a vital platform for addressing Europe’s growing cybersecurity workforce gap. The event aims to inspire the next generation of professionals to pursue careers in cybersecurity, a field that is increasingly critical in today’s digital age.

International Cyber Security Challenge (ICC)

The International Cyber Security Challenge (ICC) is the capture the flag battle of the continents, where european countries unites to compete against the following teams: asia, oceania, africa, latin america, usa and canada!

Each european country gets to nominate two people for Team Europe: One female, one male.

WorldSkills

The WorldSkills is the world championship for professions which takes place every 2 years.

WorldSkills features the skill 54: Cyber Security. Two top ranking players from the SwissSkills will be trained for 1 year together with the SwissSkills national team to participate at the next WorldSkills.