The South African National Research Network (SANReN) team hosted its 9th Cyber Security Challenge (CSC) competition during the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) National Conference at the Century City Conference Centre in Cape Town, Western Cape, from 30 November to 3 December 2025. The purpose of the competition was to stimulate interest in the field of network/information security within Southern African tertiary education institutions. Thus, the competition was aimed at university students who are interested in information security fields such as penetration testing, incident response, digital forensics, and security training.
240 teams (850 students) from 26 tertiary education institutions from South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Malawi, Lesotho and Namibia competed for spots in the final. All teams showcased excellent skills, and the CSC committee was proud to welcome the following top 10 teams (40 students) to the 2025 SANReN Cyber Security Challenge final:
- 0xB3AN5S – University of Witwatersrand (Wits) – Engineering
- 3ncrypt3d – University of Witwatersrand (Wits) – Computer Science
- $whoami_ – University of Pretoria (UP) – Computer Science
- CyberHashers – University of Cape Town (UCT) – Computer Science
- N0T0R10S – Central University of Technology (CUT)
- Off by One – Rhodes University (RU)
- R3TR0SPECT – North West University (NWU)
- Team FAVN – University of Cape Town (UCT) – Engineering
- The3xploits – University of Western Cape (UWC)
- Vanguards – Durban University of Technology (DUT)
During the competition, the above teams were exposed to the following cybersecurity challenges:
- Jeopardy-styled Capture the Flag (CTF) event which assessed the critical thinking skills of participating teams by requiring them to complete challenges that replicate real-world scenarios. The challenges include binary exploitation, cryptography, web exploitation, reverse engineering, digital forensics, and mobile phone security.
- Attack and Defend challenge for team vs. team battles. Here, every team has their own system that consists of dedicated preconfigured hardware and software. In the Attack/Defend competition, the teams must hack each other but also fix vulnerabilities in their own system (through patching).
- Orange Cyberdefense sponsored a unique cybersecurity challenge focusing on application programming interfaces (API) vulnerabilities and security. APIs are often used in the development of web applications and, therefore, necessitate the understanding and testing of such APIs to ensure the security of web applications. This challenge also exposes teams to the art of penetration testing.
- MWR Cybersec sponsored a unique cybersecurity challenge focusing on defeating a Wizard using a combination of networking, programming and machine learning. Teams had to gain an understanding of the attacks cast by the “Wizard” through networking and programming and then apply machine learning to cast an appropriate spell to defeat the “Wizard”. The challenge consisted of 4 levels.
- MathWorks/Opti-Num Solutions sponsored a unique cybersecurity challenge focusing on the utilisation of machine learning classification algorithms in a MATLAB environment to identify cybersecurity attacks in collected network data. This challenge offers an opportunity for teams to gain exposure to the use of machine learning to combat cyber-attacks.
Participating teams and mentors were also introduced to lockpicking (for educational purposes, of course) as the patience and perseverance required to pick a lock are often reflected when working in cybersecurity, as well as a Scavenger Hunt.
The competition came to a successful conclusion on the 3rd of December, and the winning teams were announced during the Awards Ceremony.
Cyber Security Challenge (CSC) Competition – Overall
The CSC 2025 winners were:
- First Place: The3xploits – University of the Western Cape
- Second place: 0xB3AN5S – University of Witwatersrand (Eng)
- Third Place: N0T0R10S – Central University of Technology
ISPA Inspires Education Sponsorship
The Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA) Social Development working group embarked on a project working towards the development of South Africa’s youth. A key project is the ISPA Inspires Educational Sponsorship, which is an initiative supporting young individuals pursuing a career in the ICT Sector. As a sponsor for the SANReN CSC 2025 Competition, ISPA awarded the educational sponsorship to promising young CSC finalists to achieve their ambitions of working in the ICT industry. The joint recipients of the ISPA Inspires Educational Sponsorship were
- Thabo Dladla from the University of Cape Town (CS), who will be continuing with his BSc Computer Science degree in 2026.
- Dean Feldman from the University of Witwatersrand (CS), who will be continuing with his BSc Computer Science degree in 2026.
Sponsored Challenges
The winner of the MATLAB Classification Challenge (sponsored by MathWorks and Opti-Num Solutions) was The3xploits – University of the Western Cape.
The winner of the API Challenge (sponsored by Orange Cyberdefense) was 3ncrypt3d – University of Witwatersrand (CS).
The winner of the Wizard Challenge (sponsored by MWR Cybersec) was 0xB3AN5S – University of Witwatersrand (Eng).
Additional Awards
The winner of the SANReN Attack and Defend challenge was The3xploits – University of the Western Cape.
Best Female Participant at the CSC 2025 Final was awarded to Lily de Melo from 0xB3AN5S – University of the Witwatersrand (Eng)
An honorary award was presented to Prof Brett van Niekerk from Durban University of Technology for his contribution to the SANReN CSC.
Sponsors
