The cybersecurity group based at FCUP stood out in two hackathons organized by the Universities of Coimbra and Aveiro.
The xSTF (Extreme Security Task Force), the University of Porto’s academic cybersecurity group based at the Faculty of Sciences (FCUP), reached the podium in two university competitions held in May in Coimbra and Aveiro.
At the beginning of May, the team — represented by Guilherme Coutinho and Filipe Gaio, students of the MSc in Information Security (M:SI) at DCC-FCUP — won the Capture The Flag (CTF) competition organized by CISUC – Centre for Informatics and Systems of the University of Coimbra, a 48-hour programming and entrepreneurship competition. The initiative was part of the Shift APPens event programme, one of the largest and most dynamic hackathons in Portugal, which also included activities aimed at secondary school students.
xSTF also stood out in the first edition of SaltCTF, an initiative organized by the University Aveiro Cybersecurity group, from the Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics Association, together with the Computer and Telematics Engineering Students’ Group of the University of Aveiro. The goal was to bring together the academic community and cybersecurity enthusiasts for a day of intense competition, knowledge sharing, and networking with industry partners.
In this hackathon, the M:SI students Guilherme Coutinho, Rafael Castilho, Leandro Costa, Nuno Saavedra, and Tiago Monteiro achieved 1st place. In second place was the team composed of Filipe Gaio, Gonçalo Melo, Tiago Abreu, Tomás Marta, and Rodrigo Santos.
In CTF competitions, each challenge contains a vulnerability. The objective is to identify the flaw, exploit it in a controlled manner, and submit the flag (a digital proof) in order to score points. A “flag” is a string of characters hidden within a file or system, which participants must find by exploiting a vulnerability. The challenges simulate real-world cybersecurity attack and defense scenarios.
About xSTF
xSTF (Extreme Security Task Force) was created in 2015 at the Department of Computer Science of FCUP.
The team is currently led by Guilherme Coutinho, while institutional coordination and mentoring are provided by FCUP professor João Resende.
The group is composed of undergraduate and master’s students from several DCC programmes, particularly from the MSc in Information Security.
In addition to researching security vulnerabilities and organizing workshops and training sessions at the University, this FCUP group regularly participates in international Capture the Flag competitions.