CLUB ACTIVITIES

“X-Factor” was a competitive coding event organized by the Cyber Security and Ethical Hacking (CSEH) club. Upon the hacker’s Instagram boast, participants scour profiles for clues, stumbling upon a breadcrumb trail leading to a Google Drive. Inside lies the elusive “flag.txt” harboring the hacker’s concealed IP address. Eight teams race to decrypt their encrypted port numbers and application names, embarking on an exchange mission with a single partner team. As they crack codes and unravel the backdoor, the trio of ciphertext, cipher, and key morphs into a plaintext, unlocking the gateway to the hacker’s proxy server via the first QR code. Whittled down to four elite teams, the QR odyssey guides them through a campus maze, each starting from unique points. Chess positions unveil basketball courts, mini-sudokus divulge secret locales, all inching closer to the hacker’s lair, culminating in a high-stakes DSA contest to pinpoint the hacker’s physical domain.