Upper Tantallon youth Adam Dean recently participated in the International Cybersecurity Challenge (ICC) for 2026 in Brisbane, Australia. Adam, who is going into his second year of Dalhousie University’s computer science program, says, “I was pleasantly surprised to be picked to compete as part of Team Canada in Australia. This year had some of the hardest challenges in the event’s five-year history. It was a great experience to see Australia and meet people from around the world!”
ICC is a three-day in-person event, hosted by a different country each year with 15-member teams that represent 80 countries. The aim of the challenge is to attract young talent and raise awareness around the education and skills needed in the area of cybersecurity.
The competition involves traditional Jeopardy challenges covering categories such as cryptography, reverse engineering, forensics, web exploitation, and binary exploitation, along with an Attack and Defence challenge where teams need to build defences by patching their services while attacking other teams by exploiting vulnerabilities and stealing flags. This “Capture the Flag” challenge is a gamified way to enhance essential skills needed in cybersecurity related jobs. Next year’s international event will be held in Ireland.
Visit the following websites to learn more about the International Cybersecurity Challenge:
Story by Rhonda Dean