Registrations for the 2017 Cyber Security Challenge Australia – otherwise known as CySCA – have now closed and the registered teams will begin training for the 24-hour challenge that will start on the 10^th of May.

CySCA is a “hacking” competition designed to find the next generation of Australian cyber security talent from Universities around Australia.

This year, a total of 79 teams – 310 participants – from 26 institutions, with a 65% increase in women participating in the Challenge since 2015, will line up to complete a series of challenges over a 24-hour period to be crowned the ultimate winner.

“We are excited that the popularity of CySCA is growing, with 15 more teams – 60 more students competing this year compared to 2015,” said Alastair MacGibbon, Special Adviser to the Prime Minister on Cyber Security.

Teams will now begin an intense period of training, learning how to out-skill and out-smart the competition in cyber space. The stakes are high for the competing teams. Not only are there amazing prizes to be won – attendance at DEFCON in Las Vegas, courtesy of HackLabs; entry to Cisco Live 2018; and tickets Ruxcon 2017 courtesy of PwC – but many students go on to secure jobs at the high profile CySCA partners after finishing university.

The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet would like to acknowledge and thank our industry partners Telstra, Cisco, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Splunk, Facebook, Hacklabs, BAE-Systems, and Microsoft. We are all excitedly anticipating the start of the event next month.

If you would like to stay up to date with the Challenge, follow us on Twitter @CySCAExCon and Facebook.