NCO Contest

 

 

National Cybersecurity Olympiad (NCO) 2025
19 April 2025

 

NCO Onsite Contest Details:

  • Date: 19 April 2025
  • Time: 09:00 AM to 01:00 PM (4 hours)
  • Venue: COM3-Multi Purpose Halls, School of Computing, NUS
  • Format: Multiple-choice questions (MCQ), and CTF format challenges
  • Duration: 4-hour continuous contest.
  • Contest Platform: https://ctfd.io/  [Account and Login details will be shared to the respective students closer to the contest date]
  • Attire: School Uniforms
  • Please note that this NCO contest is only for Singapore school students.

Rules/Format:

  • All students must bring their own laptops to participate in the contest.
  • Students must bring their School ID or NRIC for verification.
  • Open-book format – students can use any online tools and resources
  • Internet access is required throughout the contest
  • Any updates to the contest format will be communicated in advance.

NCO Training Sessions:

  • Date: 05 & 12 April 2025
  • Time: 09:00 AM to 05:00 PM
  • Format: Online Training.
  • Our training partner, the Centre for Strategic Infocomm Technologies (CSIT), will send the login and Zoom details to the respective students for the online training closer to the training date.
  • Additional training videos from NUS will also be shared with the students closer to the training date.


NCO Training Topics:

Date & Time Topics covered Trainer
Session 1 Training:
5 April, 9am – 5pm
  • Intro to Linux
  • Intro to Python
  • Intro to Data Science
 Centre for Strategic Infocomm Technologies (CSIT), Singapore
Session 2 Training:
12 April, 9am – 5pm
  • Intro to RE,
  • Forensics and Pwn

 

Additional Training Materials:

Format: Topics: Trainer
Pre-Recorded Training Videos
  • Cryptography
  • Web Exploitation
  • Binary Exploitation
 National University of Singapore

 

NCO Contest Programme: 19 April 2025

19 April 2025 National Cybersecurity Olympiad (NCO) Programme:
08:00 AM – 08:30 AM Onsite Registration
08:30 AM - 09:00 AM Briefing
09:00 AM – 01:00 PM CTF Contest – 4 hours continuous
01:00 PM – 03:00 PM Lunch + Networking*
03:00 PM – 03:45 PM DIS Talk - Confirmed
03:45 PM – 04:30 PM <Sponsors Talk >
04:30 PM – 04:45 PM Short Break
04:45 PM – 05:30 PM Awards and Closing Ceremony
*NCO/ICO Sponsors will set up the physical booth for engagement and networking with participants

 

Prerequisite/Knowledge Requirements:

To effectively participate in the NCO onsite contest, students are encouraged to attend the training sessions and have a basic understanding of Python and C programming, particularly in the following areas:

Python Programming:

  • Basic concepts: Variables, Data Types, Conditional Statements, Loops, File I/O, OOP, Exception Handling
  • Network libraries: Requests, Socket, Scapy, Paramiko, Socket.IO, HTTPx, PyCurl
  • Cryptography libraries: SSL, Cryptography, PyCrypto, PyCryptodome, Hashlib, PyNaCl
  • Penetration testing libraries: Impacket, Python-nmap, Pwntools, BeautifulSoup

C Programming:

  • Basic syntax and structure, Data types, Memory management, Control structures, Functions, Pointers & Arrays
  • File I/O, Bitwise operations, Buffer overflows, Structs & Typedefs, Assembly & System Calls, Debugging tools (optional)
  • Students are encouraged to explore any additional resources they find useful beyond NCL’s materials.

The online qualifier contest will be based on the above topics but is not limited to them. Students should aim to build a strong foundational understanding of cybersecurity concepts to perform well.

Client Device Requirements for the Contest:

General Requirements:

  • Each participant should have access to a device that is able to access internet.

This device should have the following capabilities.

Supported Operating Systems (either one of the following):

  • Windows: Windows 10 or higher
  • Mac: macOS 12 (Monterey) or higher
  • Linux: Ubuntu 20+, Debian 10+

Browser Requirements:

  • A web browser is required to access the contest platform. Supported browsers include (but not limited to):
  • Google Chrome
  • Firefox 80+
  • Opera
  • Microsoft Edge 17+

SSH Client (Optional):

Other Tools/Packages/Software:

Participants may need to install the following tools to complete certain challenges: