Cyber Hackathon & Why it is the Need of the Hour?

Cyberattacks are becoming more common, and these catastrophes affect non-technical users the most. As a result, it’s essential for us to come up with new ways to address cybersecurity gaps. This is where cyber hackathons make a difference.

Without a question, Cyber Empowerment is a critical necessity of the hour. Cyber hackathons have shown to be the most effective platform for both amateurs and professionals to exhibit their abilities. The LEAs are able to publish their problem statements and challenge contestants to build a functional software via these hackathons.

Once the skilled minds create a code to change “Cyber Space”, the cyberspace guardians use the resultant solutions to track and mitigate cyberattacks.

Let’s have a look at the upcoming hackathons that will help us accomplish our goals and innovate solutions. Above all, those solutions will help our officers to investigate cybercrimes in a better way.

Cyber Security Hackathon 2022 – Devbhoomi Cyber Hackathon

After analyzing the need for Cyber Empowerment, North Indian State Police – Uttarakhand Police is organizing Devbhoomi Cyber Hackathon. It will start on 9th August 2022 and end on 12th August 2022. It is the second hackathon that is happening in the state of Uttarakhand, India. Thus, the aforementioned hackathon is unique in its class. And we are the proud sponsors of this cyber hackathon.

This cyber hackathon will be held in two phases. First and foremost, the participants can start their registration process from 24th May 2022. The problem statements will upload on the same day. In this phase, the participants have to submit their solutions to the shared problem statements by 22th July 2022. The official email ID to submit their solution is [email protected].

The Jury will share the first-round results of the participating candidates, on the Official Website. Following this, the winners from the first round will participate in the final round of the Devbhoomi Cyber Hackathon. Finally, the last round will take place. This round consists of a non-stop coding session of 36 hours.

 The results will be out on 11th August 2022. And first, 3 winning teams will get the winning price of Rs 6,00,000 at the Police Headquarters, Dehradun, India,

Devbhoomi Cyber Hackathon 1.0 – Results Announced

A total of 326 teams took part in the hackathon from various parts of the country. Not only there were students from Uttarakhand, but students also participated from Punjab, Delhi, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, etc.

As discussed above, the results were announced on 12th November 2021. The names of the winning participants are mentioned below:

Winner – Saumya Srivastava and Kartik Setia, Jain University

First Runner Up – Sanyam Jain and Manjot Singh, Lovely Professional University

Second Runner Up – Meet Bisht, Parul University

Consolation Prize

• Shivankar Kumar Singh, Aginity Communications Pvt. Ltd.
• Arya Kesharwani, Akshay Srivastava, Sachin Singh, Abhinav Singh, and Abhinav Singh, IIT Madras

The winning team got the prize money of Rs 50,000 and the first runner-up got Rs 30,000.

Problem Statements of Devbhoomi Cyber Hackathon 2021

Problem Statement 1 – CDR Analysis Tool

Explanation – CDR (Call Data Record) is the call record of SMS and conversations by Telephone Service Providers. It consists of fields like Caller’s Number, Called Number, Date of Call, Time of Call, Call Duration, IMEI (Handset Number), etc.

Expectation – The presented solution should filter the raw Call Data Records provided by TSPs. Moreover, the officer will just enter the raw CDR excel record. As a result, the solution has to filter data on the basis of contact summary, call duration summary, day & night location, IMEI summary, IMSI summary, top callers, & call types.

Expected Result – The officers only have to enter raw CDR and they will apply smart filters to filter required data.

Problem Statement 2 – Social Media Analysis / Record Finding Tool

Explanation – A solution or interface that works as an open-source platform. This will eventually help to get records crowdsourced through multiple platforms and websites.

Expectation – An interconnection of platforms on the basis of email ID or mobile numbers with the help of information available in the public domain.

For instance, the mobile number is provided as an input and the solution must search and provide all the accounts linked with that number. So, the linked platforms must include Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, Paytm, TrueCaller, Amazon, UPI, etc.

Expected Result – Police only have to enter the Email or mobile number of the suspect and the solution should provide all the linkages on the different platforms via the Social Engineering process.

Problem Statement 3 – Crime Based Data Collection Software

Explanation – An application that accepts Police Investigation Data like CDR / Bank Accounts / IDPR and manages it into different categories.

Expectation – Multiple types of raw data such as mobile data or bank accounts are added to the software. The data is then organized crime-wise and gives an alert if any similar input number, data, or detail gets matched with some other crime number.

Expected Result – Police only need to enter the FIR number / Crime number. Subsequently, the application displays all data in small folders / briefcases along with interconnections / interlinkages.

Problem Statement 4 – Crime Predictive Model / Tool for Hotspot Mapping

Explanation – Map particular zones where a specific crime is more widespread. A few categories for classification:

Expectation – There is a need for a solution. Where police CCTNS could be internally linked. And the area of crime is marked. Then, the solution should be able to create a multi-colored zonal mapping to emphasize the type of most committed crime and also map the police station area-wise.

Expected Result – Whenever the Police officer enters the CCTNS FIR data, it should align with the interface automatically. Moreover, it must provide a zonal representation of crimes on the map area-wise. Also, the city should mark out police station-wise.

Problem Statement 5 – Social Media Searches on Regional Basis with Time Chronology

Explanation – Advanced filters to crowd search data and list out the viral keyword on various Social Media Platforms.

Expectation – A keyword-based search process will require where a specific keyword is scanned across multiple social media platforms. That search will help to identify the areas, user profiles, and platforms that are circulating the content / post.

Expected Results – The police should input the keywords and the solution should provide the time chronology. Furthermore, it should also provide the platforms with user details of people who are making the content viral.

Problem Statement 6 – Tracing Bitcoin Transactions

Explanation – An interface from where the police can analyze crypto data.

Expectation – The crypto data is sourced through multiple platforms like CoinDCX or WazirX. In this, the data needs to be analyzed to search for interlinkages with platforms over the Internet with the potential to track the movement of various cryptocurrencies.

Expected Results – Police must input the crypto details and open-source networking (intelligence-based). Other than this, it needs to find out the links of crypto data with crypto exchange dealing OSINT platforms.

Problem Statement 7 – Network Security

Explanation – Come up with a private VPN network with IP spoofing and email facilities.

Expectation – A solution to create a private VPN that impersonates the IP Address and makes their internal network private.

Expected Results – Police to have their personal network where internet connection is secured with an option to impersonate the emails. So, that they can create a trap and catch criminals.

Problem Statement 8 – VoIP Calls Tracing

Explanation – It becomes difficult for police officers to trace internet calls. Thus, an advanced solution becomes the need where the police can trace the person who is making an internet call.

Expectation – There should be a solution that can fetch the internet call details. It can achieve by capturing the IMEI of that person. Or also by sending some IP grabbing mechanism of the person trying to make internet calls.

Furthermore, if a mechanism could develop to trace and get virtual number details that can develop using apps (Rogue apps).

Expected Results – The prime motive is to identify the location of the person who is trying to make internet calls.

Problem Statement 9 – Bank Accounts Layering

Explanation – At the time of the criminal investigation, the Law agencies will come across several bank accounts. Here comes the need for a mechanism, will arise which will integrate those bank accounts into layers.

Expectation – Banks are providing several accounts in the form of excel sheets and PDFs. Therefore, this solution must be able to link all the data and present it in a well-organized and layered format.

Expected Results – The solution must find out about the different layers of financial transactions / movements held between one bank account to another. Furthermore, it will provide the details of the source and destination bank accounts.

Problem Statement 10 – Developing Management Information Systems

Explanation – MIS model elaborates on the study of the people, technology, organizations, and the relationships between them. In this, the MIS professionals help companies to get the most benefit from their investment in people, equipment, & business processes.

Expectations – A platform where the panel portrays the summary of the developments in a district. The pointers can be FIR case registration, complaint registrations, and other applications at one common point of delivery.

Expected Results – The senior police officials can signify the developments made in a district, registered cases & complaints, and other related issues in a single interface.

Problem Statement 11 – Mobile Forensics OSINT Tool

Explanation – The open-source intelligence must be able to extract the mobile data and analyse the same for criminal inquiry and investigation.

Expectations – It can presume that the software can scan the deleted files and crawl the WhatsApp / Facebook chats.

Expected Results – It can expect that the Police officials can connect the phone via a data cable and the automatic extraction will begin. Besides this, the results come out in a filtered manner.

Problem Statement 12 – Open Software/Tool/Application

Explanation – Need to develop various tools that help to digitize and modernize the Police work culture.

Expectations – The application must be robust, and platform-independent which can easily set up on any smartphone. Additionally, it should precisely ease the work of the Police and provide some productive results based on the team’s coding ability.

This issue is unrestricted, and all participants are free to code in their area of interest. Along with its applicability/relevancy to the police. So, we give participants the opportunity to code if they don’t want to look for any of the first 11 problems.

Expected Results – Police should get new state-of-the-art software / tool to increase efficiency. And hence, take a step towards SMART policing.