In July this year, South Coast Baptist College ran Cyber Glitch: Capture the Flag, a cybersecurity competition held at Murdoch University’s state-of-the-art IT facility. The event brought together 149 students from six schools across Western Australia for a day of high-stakes digital problem-solving.

The Scenario

Students were plunged into a gripping storyline: a rogue AI had seized control of Nexus Academy, and it was up to them to fight back. Working in teams of three, students tackled a series of Capture the Flag (CTF) challenges – cracking codes, analysing digital clues, solving cryptography puzzles and racing against the clock to restore control of the hacked network. No prior cybersecurity experience was required, just curiosity, teamwork and a willingness to give it a go.

Representing South Coast Baptist College on the day was our Ethical Hacking Co-Curricular lower year groups, putting the skills they’ve been building all year.

Expert Support

The quality of the challenges was made possible thanks to the expertise of a specialist from the Australian Signals Directorate, who worked alongside the College to design and build the puzzles. We were also fortunate to have our former IT Manager, Mitch Pieri, lend his knowledge and support to bring the event to life.

While our own students didn’t take home a trophy this year, the real win was in what the event achieved for cybersecurity education across the state. Feedback from participating schools was overwhelmingly positive, with students and staff alike praising the challenge, the atmosphere and the professionalism of the day.

Murdoch has already confirmed we can run Cyber Glitch again next year, and there are exciting plans in the works to expand the competition further – with a particular focus on increasing participation from regional schools, giving more students across WA the chance to experience this kind of hands-on STEM learning.