MTU was delighted to host Toyota HackFesta, an initiative by Toyota to introduce students to automotive cyber security. The event took the form of a Capture the Flag (CTF), where participants complete challenging cyber security tasks in order to recover a "flag" which is then exchanged for points. The challenges were based around Toyota's unique PASTA and RAMN systems, which emulate the computer and network systems found in modern vehicles.

This event has previously run in the US and Japan annually since 2022 and this is the first time the event took place in a European university. The European side of the event was led jointly by Toyota Motor North America and Dr Dylan Smyth from the Department of Computer Science.

HackFesta consisted of a qualifier event, held in September, and a final which took place in November. The qualifier included 15 students from the departments of Computer Science and Electrical & Electronic Engineering, divided into teams, competing against each other for a place in the final. The top two teams from the qualifier in each region went forward to the final, which was run in-sync across the US, Japan, and Ireland.

 

The Irish teams were incredibly successful during the competition, finishing in 1st and 2nd place.

The team in 1st place:

Alex Ringhoffer (Computer Science)

Dylan Bairamgulov (ElecEng)

Stepan Chornyi (ElecEng)

The team in 2nd place was:

Maria O'Leary (Computer Science)

Luis Caldas (Computer Science)

Danylo Treshchov (Computer Science)

 

Toyota's official report on the event can be found here: https://www.toyota-tokyo.tech/en/news/pdf/241129report_en.pdf