Registration Ends: 1st Jan 2023 (Check Contest Website) Reward: 5 Lakh + Job Opportunity
About TCS Hackquest:
TCS HackQuest season 7 organized by TCS Cyber Security Unit as a serious attempt to unearth specific talent who excelled in their favorite game - Catch the Flag! Based on the popular “Catch the Flag” (CTF) format, the competition presents a series of challenges to be completed in 6 hours. Each challenge assesses participant skills in ethical hacking and their particular skill in finding vulnerabilities. TCS Cyber Security Practice is seeking students and enthusiasts who are passionate about ethical hacking and, in general, securing the digital future of organizations engaged in the transaction of millions of data points around the world.
To Get Trained in Ethical Hacking by Industry Experts to Participate in Hack Quest Join our training WhatsApp group:
Who Can Apply:
The competition is open to the following students as mentioned below:
Students from all Engineering disciplines with Bachelors or Masters degree are eligible for the contest provided that they meet the TCS recruitment criteria. Candidates trained in Security domains as listed below would be given preference:
Application Security
Network Security
Java/J2EE, php, python, GO
Information security & risk management
Ethical Hacking
Any security specific certification like Security+, CEH, ISO-27001, etc
Guidelines for Enrollment:
This event is conducted in two rounds. First round is an online Catch the Flag competition where all registered students can participate, and they will be shortlisted for further sub-rounds.
Participants shortlisted after Round 1 will move to Round 2, where they may be interviewed over Video Call/MS Teams/Webex by the TCS Cyber Security interview panel.
This is an individual contest. No team participation is permitted.
Once the contest registration begins, all interested and eligible participants will be required to register for the contest on https://www.tcshackquest.com with a valid CT/DT ID. To create a valid CT/DT ID, participant will have to login to TCS NextStep Portal, click on Register in the IT segment (Not BPS), fill in the fields and submit. The candidate will receive a pop-up with their CT/DT ID.
Entries submitted after the registration end-date will not be considered for evaluation.
For the first round, to login to the portal and access the challenges, we recommend the below mentioned specifications
Desktop/Laptop with minimum of 1024*768 screen resolution
Internet connectivity of not less than 1 Mbps Speed
Browsers: Latest version of Firefox or Chrome
Burp Suite community edition
For the second round, to login to the portal and access the challenges, below mentioned minimum specifications are recommended
Desktop/Laptop with minimum of 1024*768 screen resolution
Internet connectivity of not less than 1 Mbps Speed
Browsers: Latest version of Firefox or Chrome
Burp Suite community edition
Web Camera
Webex or Microsoft Teams
TCS will arrange for remote modalities of evaluating a select list of contestants from the 1st round. Contestants should stay tuned for real-time updates on round 2, dates, format etc.
HackQuest season 7 round 1 will be held on 7th Jan, 2023 (Saturday).
The contest will start at 10 AM and end at 4 PM.
Time to upload the report will be between 4 to 6pm. However you can start preparing the report during any time of the contest.
Reports must be uploaded in the HackQuest template which can be downloaded from the portal itself.
A valid CT/DT ID is mandatory to register for HackQuest Season 7. If you have not used the correct CT/DT ID, you will be prohibited from participating and/or disqualified from HackQuest Season 7.
Participants are expected to have stable high-speed internet connection to download files related to challenges. The size may vary as per challenge complexity.
Participants are expected to be ready with their platform of choice to solve the challenges. There might be challenges which are easier to solve in certain OS distributions.
You are allowed to use tools and programming languages of your choice, but usage of any automated scanners or tools which send a huge amount of traffic or try to brute force is strictly prohibited. Your access may be blocked from the application.
Once you solve a challenge, you will be rewarded with a flag. For your information all flags will be in the format of HQ7FLAG {..}. Please copy the flag in the flag submission box provided in each of the challenge pop ups.
There might be hidden keys for certain challenges which would be in the format of HQ7 {...}. and contestants are expected to be on a lookout for the same.
In case of any queries, write to careers@tcs.com
Who can Apply:
Any number of students can register for the contest. Participants should be above 18 years of age and would have completed their graduation in the Academic year of 2021-2022 or 2022-2023 only.
Students can participate in this contest after registering in TCS' NextStep Portal - TCS NextStep to generate a CT/DT ID in the IT Segment (Not BPS). Note: (CT)/ Direct Trainee (DT) Reference Number is mandatory for participating in the contest.
Each participant who has registered to participate in Hackquest will be receiving a unique credential to take part in the contest. This credential is of utmost importance and should not be shared with other participants.
Registration Start Date – 11th Nov 2022
Registration End Date – 1st Jan 2023
Enroll Now to Learn on Cyber Security to Participate in TCS HackQuest: Click Here
Contest Flow:
Round 1:
This will be an online test, where the candidates would be required to log on to an online application with a set of challenges / questions to test their skills on ethical hacking and their specific competency in security challenges. The URL of the application will be shared before the contest.
The contest is of 6 hours long in which all the participants are required to use their skills to solve the challenges and submit the Flags captured in the online portal.
Post to completion of solving a challenge, participants need to capture a screenshot of the Flag with timestamp visible and prepare a detailed report in the template provided with a step-by-step approach for solving a particular challenge.
This report should be uploaded on the hackquest portal before the deadline as mentioned.
Uploading of this report to the hackquest portal is mandatory and any participant failing to upload the report will NOT be considered for further evaluation. This will result in automatic disqualification of the candidate for that edition of HackQuest as well. Please also make sure that the report is original and does not match with another contestant in which case, both contestants would be rendered ineligible for further editions of HackQuest.
Maximum size of the report should not be more than 6MB.
Participants are free to use tools for their choice. Using of tools which sends huge amount of traffic or tampering with the App which hosts the challenges is strictly prohibited. If any participant is found violating this, he/she will be disqualified immediately from the remainder of the contest.
The evaluation will be based on:
Flags captured
Quality of the report submitted
Approach followed for capturing the flags
Round 1 Date: 7th Jan 2023
Round 1 Results Announcement Date: 13th Jan 2023 (Tentative)
Round 2 Dates: 6th & 7th Feb 2023 (Tentative)
Round 2:
(The below instructions are based on virtual mode, incase TCS planning for physical event – instructions to be changed)
Candidates selected from Round 1, based on above-mentioned evaluation criteria will be invited for a remotely conducted additional round, which will be communicated to shortlisted candidates later.
Day 1:
Activity 1: Penetration testing on hosted challenges
This would be an individual activity. The candidates would be provided with some challenges, which each participant is expected to solve by using their advanced skills. Challenges in this round cover below mentioned topics:
System exploitation
Penetration testing of web Applications
Mobile security
Digital forensics
Incident Response
Source Code Analysis Scoring will be based on the flags captured by the participants in above mentioned topics.
Activity 2: HR & MR Interviews (3-4 hours) - Remotely
Day 2:
Grand Finale Ceremony (1-2 hours) – The event will be conducted virtually (Physically - to be confirmed).
Reward:
The top performing candidates who clear Round 2 stand a chance to receive Ninja or Digital job offers. (Evaluation will be based on your performance only).
Winners will be awarded with exciting prizes worth up to 5 Lakhs.
Exceptional performers will be given chance to work with Centre of Excellence teams.
.............INNOVATE TO WIN..............
For more details & register click the button:
Category of the contest: Contest Based Hiring, Corporate Contest
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