Cyber Security Competition: Showdown in Las Vegas

The DEF CON is the biggest cyber security competition in the world. A team made up of students and researchers from TU Graz, TU Wien, the University of Vienna, JKU Linz, and the St. Pölten UAS took part in the final round of the unofficial hacking world championship in Las Vegas and reached 9th place.

From 7 to 10 August, the Austrian team with the name “KuK Hofhackerei” participated in the finals of the capture-the-flag contest (CTF) of the DEF CON in Las Vegas, one of the world’s most important competitions in the cyber security scene. The team was thus among the twelve best ethical hacking teams worldwide.

In the qualifying, where more than 1,300 teams participated worldwide, KuK Hofhackerei secured 6th place in the 48-hour competition, thus making it to the finals. This is the first time since 2012 that an Austrian team succeeded in qualifying for the final round of the DEF CON capture-the-flag contest.

“This goes to show the high quality of teaching and the skills of all students involved. Congratulations to the team on this remarkable success! We are proud of our committed students and researchers”, emphasises Christoph Lang-Muhr, Academic Director of the master degree programme Information Security at the St. Pölten.

Unique Experience

“Our three days in Las Vegas were characterised by long hours of hacking, little sleep, and great teamwork. We can be very pleased with the rank we’ve achieved – the more so as we participated in the finals of the DEF CON CTF for the first time. Even the qualifying for the finals is a highly competitive challenge. A big thank you is due to the St. Pölten UAS for its support, both as sponsor and in many other respects”, says Jonas Heschl, student in the St. Pölten UAS’ bachelor degree programme IT Security.

“Considering that it was our first time participating in the finals, we did a very good job and achieved all the goals we set for ourselves. We all gained valuable experiences and grew even closer together as a team in the finals”, adds Stefan Machherndl, Junior Researcher at the Department of Computer Science and Security at the St. Pölten UAS and a member of KuK Hofhackerei.

Mainly Bachelor and Master Students

KuK Hofhackerei consists of approximately 40 members, most of whom are bachelor or master degree students at the universities involved. The team is complemented by a smaller number of PhD students and IT security professionals from the practical realm such as the AI-based IT observability and security company Dynatrace. The team meets at regular intervals to work on security tasks together and prepare for competitions.

Applying IT Security Knowledge and Competencies

In capture-the-flag competitions, teams are faced with tasks from various fields of IT security including web exploitation, cryptography, reverse engineering, or system analysis. The objective is to detect and exploit weaknesses in IT systems.

The tasks in the qualifying for the finals in Las Vegas included, for example, hacking websites, breaking insecure or non-standard cryptography, and reverse engineering programmes with the goal of identifying and exploiting their weak spots.

In its preparations for the DEF CON CTF finals, the team received support from the involved universities, universities of applied sciences, and industry sponsors. Contrary to most other CTF competitions, which usually take place online, the finalists in this case competed on site in Las Vegas.

• DEF CON
• KuK Hofhackerei