Rashtriya Raksha University has decided to sign a merger with the Military College of Telecommunication Engineering (MCTE), They will together conduct the first “Indian Army Hackathon”.
Starting from 16th October’21, this Hackathon will go on for three months. The main aim of this will be to make the forces combat-ready to battle any type of cyber-war type situation. The Hackathon was launched on 1st October by the Chief of Army Staff, General M M Naravane, PVSM, AVSM, SM, VSM, ADC along with the Army Commander Army Training Command Lt Gen Raj Shukla, YSM, SM, GOC-in C ARTRAC.
This exercise will be conducted in three stages, the levels of training will keep increasing with each passing stage. In the final level, the participants will be competing with one another in the fields of secure coding and exploitation of software-defined radios and will culminate in teams competing with each other in cyberspace with real and simulated threats.
The participants will need to devise and execute their strategy to beat others to Capture the Flag. The event will also host a number of seminars, expert talks, and conclaves. While addressing the media, Lt Gen M U Nair, Commandant MCTE said that “the participants will be open across the country to engineering students as also to Army personnel. It is expected that at least 30,000 people will participate in the same in an online mode.”
On this occasion, Prof. (Dr.) Bimal Patel, Vice-Chancellor, Rashtriya Raksha University, stated that cyber is now a way of life across all sectors and touches almost everyone. The exploitation of vulnerabilities in the system is being exploited by criminals and adversaries alike, and this is emerging as the biggest threat to a peaceful and law-abiding life. He complimented the Indian Army and MCTE for having taken the lead in this and mentioned that events such as the Indian Army Hackathon are essential to understand possible vulnerabilities and weaknesses, and thereby secure them.
Lt Gen M U Nair further added “there will be a dedicated web portal sainya-ranakshetram which will allow for registration and also track the conduct of the event in real-time”. He also stated that this is a first-of-its-kind event in the country, and the Indian Army is planning to have this as an annual event. Registrations will begin on October 16, 2021.
