Strengthening Youth White-Hat Hacker Capabilities to Combat Black-Hat Cybercrime

The Gyeonggi Province Office of Education (Superintendent An Min-seok) held a 'Cyber Attack and Defense Competition' for students participating in the '2nd Gyeonggi Youth Cybersecurity Camp'.

The competition held on the 5th at the Southern Building of the Gyeonggi Province Office of Education was the final stage of an educational program where students who participated in the camp in April with curiosity and dreams about cybersecurity directly demonstrated what they had learned and experienced over five months.

Rather than simply a competition to test skills, it was designed to provide students with the experience of solving problems on their own, learning through failure, and growing into future information security experts—white-hat hackers. A white-hat hacker is an ethical security specialist who conducts simulated hacking and vulnerability assessments, a concept contrasted with black-hat cybercriminals.

During the 2nd camp held earlier, diverse learning opportunities were provided including cybersecurity concepts and ethical consciousness cultivation, basic web and system hacking training, security problem-solving practice sessions, field trips to information protection specialized agencies, and meetings with practicing experts. Additionally, students who participated in the preliminary cyber attack and defense competition held on August 8th (Saturday) became familiar with the competition environment and proceedings, and also participated in special lectures on cybersecurity-related university admissions.

In this main competition conducted in a CTF (Capture The Flag) format resembling real-world scenarios, students gained experience solving problems across various fields including web hacking, system hacking, cryptography, and reverse engineering within limited time, and had opportunities to encounter cutting-edge security technologies through AI attack and defense training.

An official from the Gyeonggi Province Office of Education stated, "Future white-hat hackers must be people with correct values before having excellent technical skills, and should be 'people who protect society safely' rather than 'people who know attack and defense techniques.' The Gyeonggi Province Office of Education will continue to promote a field-oriented educational transformation so that students can develop into information security professionals with proper ethical consciousness and a sense of responsibility."