You already know that in Watch Dogs 2 hacking is one of the primary ways that you advance DedSec’s agenda of taking down corrupt corporations. But did you know that this fall, hundreds of students around the United States will use hacking as a way to learn about cybersecurity, hone their programming skills, and win prizes? Well, now you do! Ubisoft has partnered with Major League Hacking for the hackathon season that starts today and ends with the MLH Prime Southwest Regional on November 12-13 in Austin, Texas.

Over the next two months, the Watch Dogs 2 Student Hackthons will take place at universities across the nation. The student hackers will focus on the connected devices that are increasingly ubiquitous in our society, endeavoring to better understand these devices and their potential risks and vulnerabilities.

“The type of hacking that takes place at Major League Hacking events is all about hacking in the sense of finding creative solutions,” said Jon Gottfried, co-founder of MLH. “We believe that learning cybersecurity skills is the first step to understanding how to secure your own applications and data as a developer.”

The hackathon events will also include a custom Watch Dogs 2 Capture the Flag challenge, hosted at mlh.io/watchdogs. This exercise will allow students to find security vulnerabilities in a simulated environment to learn more about securing and protecting their own applications.

The Watch_Dogs 2 Student Hackathon schedule includes:

September 16: Cornell University
September 17: Virginia Commonwealth University
September 23: John Hopkins University
September 24: Dartmouth College
September 24: The Cooper Union
September 30: University of Tennessee, Knoxville
September 30: University of California, San Diego
October 1: Virginia Commonwealth University
October 1: Wellesley College
October 1: Texas A&M University
October 7: University of Massachusetts Amherst
October 7: Kent State University
October 14: Rice University
October 14: University of Oregon
October 15: Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
October 21: York College of Pennsylvania
October 21: Harvard University
October 22: Miami Dade College
October 29: University of Houston
November 4: Trent University
November 4: Washington University in St. Louis
Nove (WILL LINK)mber 5: Northern Illinois University

You can learn more about the MLH’s hackathons by reading their excellent FAQ and see more details about each event on their North American schedule page or European Schedule page. Watch Dogs will be releasing on PS4, Xbox One, and PC on November 15. To learn more about Watch Dogs, DedSec, and the open world of San Francisco, check out the UbiBlog coverage linked below.

Watch Dogs 2 – The Latest from Sitara’s DedSec Hackerspace

Watch Dogs 2 – Remote Access: How Hacker Culture Helped Create DedSec

Watch Dogs 2 – Free Roam and Multiplayer Gameplay Walkthrough

The post Watch Dogs 2 Student Hackathons Kick Off appeared first on UbiBlog – Ubisoft®.

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The Author

Chris Watters loves to captain tall ships, drive motorbikes off cliffs, and fight cassowaries. Video games have made his life a lot more manageable. He is a former host and writer at GameSpot, the author of The Gamer’s Bucket List, and now a Communications Specialist for Ubisoft. Follow him on Twitter at @CTWatters.

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