A group of hackers from two North American universities have won the “Capture the Flag” championship, a contest billed as the “Olympic in hacking”, bringing together the world’s best in the field. In the carpeted ballroom of one of the biggest casinos in Las Vegas, several dozen hackers competing in the challenge sat hunched over laptops Friday through Sunday during the DEF CON security conference held. event organization. The winning team, known as the Maple Mallard Magistrates, included participants from Carnegie Mellon University, alumni of the school and the University of British Columbia.
The contest involved hacking into custom software designed by the tournament organizers. Participants must not only find bugs in the program, but also protect themselves against attacks from other competitors.
The hackers, mostly young men and women, included tourists from China, India, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. Some work for their government, some work for private companies and others are university students.
While their countries may engage in cyber espionage against each other, the DEF CON CTF competition allows elite hackers to come together in a spirit of sport.
The reward is not money, but prestige. Giovanni Vigna, a faculty member at the University of California at Santa Barbara, said: “There is no other competition as impactful as this one. “And people leave politics at home.”
“You will easily find one participant here and another who might come from a so-called enemy country to say ‘you did a great job, an incredible attack. ‘”
The game has taken on a new meaning in recent years as cybersecurity has been seen by the United States, its allies and adversaries as a national security priority. Over the past 10 years, the cybersecurity industry has grown tremendously in value as hacking technology has evolved.
Aaditya Purani, a participant as an engineer at electric car maker Tesla Inc.
This year’s contest was broadcast on YouTube for the first time, accompanied by televised sports-style live commentary.
DEF CON itself, which began as a get-together for a few hundred hackers in the late 1990s, has been held across four casinos this year and attracted a crowd of more than 30,000, according to organizers.
On Saturday afternoon, “Hold the Flag” contest participants sat typing on their laptops as conference attendees streamed in and out of the room to watch. Some participants ate at the table, sipping burgers and fries with their eyes glued to the screen.
Seungbeom Han, a systems engineer at Samsung Electronics who is on the Korean team, said it was his first time participating in the competition and was honored to have qualified.
Competition is fierce, and sitting eight hours a day in chairs is no easy feat. They took a bathroom break, he said with a laugh, “but they wasted time.”
© Thomson Reuters 2022
