VUBeest claimed victory in the 11th edition of the Cyber Security Challenge (CSC). During the preliminary rounds, over 1,000 students tackled various puzzles related to cybersecurity in small teams. In the end VUBeest was named the best cyber security team in Belgium after winning the final at the Royal Military Academy.
For the 11th year in a row, the Cyber Security Challenge brought together Belgium's finest cyber security talents. The Cyber Security Challenge is a multi-stage competition whereby students from across Belgium compete against each other in a series of challenging assignments related to cyber security.
The assignments range from complex puzzles to simulating large-scale cyber attacks. The main goal of the challenge is to raise their awareness and encourage them to consider studying cyber security.
During this year's edition, as many as 1,000 students participated in the preliminary rounds. The participants are students with a passion for technology and a keen eye for detail, who want to test and refine their skills.
VUBeest wins Cyber Security Challenge 2025
The teams that had signed up were presented with online challenges on 14 and 15 March. On 28 and 29 March, the 25 best teams, each composed of four students, from the preliminary rounds were presented with even more complex challenges at the Royal Military Academy.
Like every year, DNS Belgium devised a challenge for the final: ‘Resolving (in) the dark side of DNS’. Students were given two stacks of blocks that represented domain name zone files and were tasked to solve a puzzle in the dark.
We'd made a network diagram of a simplified network flow for email. The students had to study the network diagram and, in the dark, correctly configure the zone files so that an email would be delivered to the recipient's inbox and not end up in the spam folder, be quarantined or deleted. Only one team correctly worked out the entire flow.
VUBeest, a team of students of the Haute École Libre Mosane (HELMo) and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, were the eventual winners. They secured the title ahead of Claquettes Chaussettes of the Université Libre de Bruxelles and Zeus Daemons of Ghent University and Hogent, who came in second and third respectively.
"Our main goal is to ensure that students remember the importance of DNS for establishing and maintaining a secure ICT environment later in their careers."
A good knowledge of DNS is important
‘DNS Belgium has been involved with the Cyber Security Challenge for years’, says Kristof Tuyteleers, security officer at DNS Belgium. ‘Every year we work with our colleagues from Engineering to come up with some challenging puzzles and a final assignment. We do this for two important reasons.’
‘First of all, we want to introduce students to DNS Belgium and inform them about internships and master's thesis opportunities that we offer to both bachelor's and master's students.’
‘But our main goay is to ensure that students remember the importance of DNS for establishing and maintaining a secure ICT environment later in their careers.yThe Cyber Security Challenge provides an excellent opportunity to raise this awareness’, says Kristof.
With this article, we support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.