Young people dive into the hacker business: IT camp in Hagen inspires!

Young people dive into the hacker business: IT camp in Hagen inspires!

The hacker camp days took place in Hagen from April 20th to 22nd, 2025, organized by the FernUniversität Hagen and the Hagen Technical Center. A total of 14 young people between the ages of 14 and 18 took part in the event. The focus was on various IT topics, in particular the programming and encryption of data.

Over the three days, the participants first received an introduction to the Python programming language, which is increasingly being used in innovative areas such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. On the third day, the students had the opportunity to visit the Immersive Collaboration Hub (ICH) at the FernUniversität, where they were able to marvel at modern technologies such as 3D printers and VR glasses.

Mathematical foundations of IT security

Jun.-Prof. Steffen Kionke explained to the participants the fundamental role of algebra in the encryption of sensitive data. He pointed out the close connection between mathematics and computer science and encouraged talented students to delve more intensively into these subjects during their school years. In this context, Kionke also drew attention to the challenges faced by young people from rural areas, who often do not have access to face-to-face universities.

Kionke emphasized that good encryption concepts require complex mathematical operations. For example, multiplying large prime numbers is a simple task for computers, but calculating back is a significant challenge. These mathematical concepts are important not only for encryption, but also for general IT security and its further development, such as linformatik.de represents.

Mathematics plays a crucial role in cryptography, which is known as the science of encrypting and decrypting information. The basic concepts used here include modular arithmetic and number theory. Encryption algorithms such as RSA and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) are critically based on these mathematical principles.

Current challenges in cyber security

In addition to discussing cryptography and mathematics, the event highlighted that the financial sector is currently experiencing an increase in DDoS attacks, with up to 50% of organizations facing imminent threats. It is important to proactively mitigate the attack surface and identify network anomalies in a timely manner. Offers for this TryHackMe offers tailored labs that focus on these challenges and enable teams to effectively adapt to cyber security issues.

TryHackMe's customized trainings are designed to cater to different skill levels - from beginners to experts. This goes hand in hand with the need to promote the mathematical basis for security mechanisms through training such as that at the hacker camp days. In combination with the programming skills they have learned, these young people could become the next experts in IT security of tomorrow.