The hacker 'World Cup' season

The upcoming DEF CON Capture-the-Flag qualifier, this is the biggest hacking competition of the year for hackers worldwide. Capture-the-Flag (CTF), the very interesting and fascinating intellectual sport of hackers.

Hacking and more

CTF is usually organized in the form of war games, focusing on two players' attack and defense skills. CTF participating teams will be provided with a server (or a server network) that has preinstalled many programs containing security holes. The task of the team is to find the holes, attack the servers of other teams to score points, and quickly patch holes on the server of the home team, to avoid being attacked by teams other.

CTF attracts and attracts hackers because these contests reflect very honestly the daily work and require players to have the skills of a true hacker. To win a CTF competition, players must not only "know six sentences" of skills to detect and exploit security vulnerabilities, but also be truly skilled in protecting the safety and maintaining character. continuity of the network before attacks from outside.

With very high intensity and pressure, so even though CTF rules often allow individuals to participate, winning often belongs to teams with a high level of membership and the ability to " coordinate operations ". effective.

The hacker 'World Cup' season Picture 1
Some CLGT members attend the ISEC 2009 final round in Korea

Although more or less members, in order to play well a CTF team must have proficient members of skills such as programming, system administration (sysadmin), reverse code engineering, and investigation. Digital forensic cases, cryptanalysis, as well as detecting and exploiting security vulnerabilities in application security software. These are high-level skills, not every day or two, but require a process of academic training as well as long-term practical work. Topics in CTF competitions also revolve around these subject groups.

Another attraction of CTF is that outside of gray matter, to win the participating teams, there must be very good preparation in terms of internal organization as well as . physical strength. CTF competitions usually take place continuously from 24 hours to 72 hours, so all teams must plan their competitions to make sure that the home team is always in combat. Reasonable power distribution, clear division of work and efficient team work are the factors that greatly affect the success or failure of teams.

Hacker's " World Cup "

CTF was first held in 1997, at the famous hacking seminar DEF CON (USA). So far though CTF competition has been replicated all over the world, but the DEF CON CTF is still the largest CTF competition and is considered the " World Cup " of this intellectual sport. Normally, the DEF CON CTF will be organized by a reputable hacker group to organize the exam and examination. Starting in 2009, DEF CON CTF will be held annually by sk3wl0fr00t, winning team DEF CON CTF 2008.

DEF CON CTF consists of two rounds of competition: qualifying and finals. Qualifying rounds are usually held online, and last for a certain period of time, for example, the 2009 qualifier takes place continuously for 48 hours, and this year is 55 hours. In 2009, more than 500 teams from all over the world registered to compete, and this year, up to now, there have been nearly 400 registered teams.

The hacker 'World Cup' season Picture 2
CLGT overcame many strong teams to win the HackJam 2009 CTF championship.Hope the team will repeat this achievement in DEF CON

The qualifying round will select 9 teams with the highest scores to join the champion last year to compete in the final round in Las Vegas, USA. The form of competition is that each team is assigned a server, with the task of protecting their servers, and attacking other teams' servers. After three consecutive days, the team with the highest score is the champion team.

Teams compete in the DEF CON CTF finals and win prizes that are respected by the security community because they have proven their hacking skills. In fact, the DEF CON CTF Finals are also an important occasion for employers to hunt for talent in the information security industry.

Hopes

Referring to CTF in Vietnam, we must mention CLGT team, with core members from VNSecurity research team. In 2009, for the first time to attend the DEF CON CTF qualifier, CLGT could not enter the finals because it only ranked 19th. However, during the past year, the CLGT team also represented Vietnam to participate in the competition quite often. and achieved many positive achievements at CTF competitions around the world.

For example, CLGT has reached the final round and ranked 6th in ISEC 2009 CTF (Korea), ranking 2nd in Malaysia HITB 2009 CTF (Malaysia) and 2nd in the CodeGate 2010 CTF (Korea). Especially in 2009, CLGT also had its first victory when overcoming many strong teams to win the HackJam 2009 CTF championship.

" To prepare for the 2010 DEF CON CTF qualifier, the CLGT team has begun to gather forces to practice and plan competitions for months. The team's inherent weakness is the lack of force this year. partly overcome with the participation of a number of HVAOnline members and some students from Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology ", Mr. Le Dinh Long, founding member of VNSecurity group, leader of CLGT, said.

Vietnam Hacking Festival

Parallel to the framework of SyScan 2010 international conference held on 23rd - 24th September 2010, VNSecurity group will hold the final round of " Vietnam Hacking Festival ", a CTF competition with the participation of teams in and abroad. The qualifying round of the competition will take place at the beginning of August 2010, please be interested in visiting VNSecurity.net for more details.