skip to content
Ahmed's Forum
Table of Contents

What is PakCrypt?

PakCrypt is Pakistan’s national cryptology and cybersecurity symposium. It draws 1,500+ contestants from across the country — university students, professionals, and the occasional high schooler like me. The challenges span classical cryptography, modern encryption, steganography, and applied security.

The Challenges

Without going into specific solutions (competition ethics), the problems tested a solid mix of:

  • Classical ciphers — Vigenere, Hill cipher, frequency analysis
  • Modern crypto — RSA, AES, elliptic curves
  • Steganography — hidden data in images and audio
  • Applied security — real-world scenarios requiring creative thinking

The difficulty curve was steep. The first few challenges were warmups, but by the midpoint, each problem required serious mathematical reasoning and scripting ability.

My Approach

I leaned heavily on Python for scripting — automating brute-force attempts, implementing custom decryption routines, and parsing encoded data. Having Harvard’s CS50 Cybersecurity background helped with the theoretical foundation, but the competition demanded speed and creativity beyond any course.

The key was recognizing patterns quickly. In cryptography competitions, the difference between top 50 and top 20 often comes down to how fast you can identify the cipher type and apply the right approach.

Top 18, Silver Medal

Finishing in the top 18 out of 1,500+ contestants — and earning a silver medal — was a milestone. Especially as one of the youngest participants. It validated months of self-study in cryptography and mathematical problem-solving.

Next Steps

PakCrypt reinforced my interest in the mathematical side of cybersecurity. I’m now diving deeper into elliptic curve cryptography and post-quantum algorithms. The field is evolving fast, and I want to be ready for what comes next.