Fourth international industrial Capture the Flag security competition invites ethical hackers to test the security of smart devices and industrial systems
Woburn, MA – October 22, 2018 – Kaspersky Lab is launching the fourth international industrial Capture the Flag (CTF) security competition and inviting ethical hackers, known as white hats, from across the world to test the security of smart devices and industrial systems.
Any release of new technology is usually followed by waves of hacking attempts, as both white hats and black hats search for vulnerabilities. However, while black hats are looking to exploit systems and new technologies for illegal purposes, white hats are working towards the prevention of criminal acts and their consequences. Once a vulnerability is found, white hats hand their research directly to vendors so the software can be immediately patched.
Kaspersky Lab’s annual CTF competition gathers the most talented white hats from across the world to challenge their expertise with practical tasks. As all the participants are trying to resolve actual problems in cybersecurity, rather than artificial scenarios, the impact of the findings will be significant and a number of previously unknown vulnerabilities and attack vectors will be discovered during the competition.
The teams participating in the Kaspersky Lab industrial CTF will also be given an opportunity to demonstrate their skills in the finals held at the Kaspersky Security Analyst Summit (SAS) in Singapore in 2019. Prior to this, online qualifying rounds will be held on November 23–24, 2018. Participants will be asked to resolve different types of challenges, including questions and tasks in cryptography, reverse engineering, web vulnerabilities, network protocols and other popular categories. There is also a ‘fun’ segment, which will include unexpected and creative puzzles that require a holistic approach.
To ensure the competition represents a realistic environment, organizers will evaluate participants according to the difficulty of the tasks and uniqueness of the knowledge required to solve them. Therefore, the reward for each question will be evaluated in real-time and chosen in accordance with the number of teams who managed to solve it. Puzzles solved by the largest number of participants will be worth the least points, while challenges that prove to be sophisticated enough to be cracked by only a few entrants will be more valuable. The top three teams with the highest score will compete to be crowned the overall winner in April 2019 during the SAS event. All travel and accommodation expenses for the top three teams will be covered by Kaspersky Lab.
“We are surrounded by smart devices and rely on them in our everyday life more and more, while IoT malware grows and differentiates rapidly,” said Vladimir Dashchenko, head of vulnerability research at Kaspersky Lab ICS CERT. “This year’s competition could give us unique insights into the landscape of smart device security. To maximize the impact, we will try to make this year’s finals a bit different from previous ones, and the participants will face surprises, just like they would if they were trying to resolve cyberthreats in real life.”
To participate in the Kaspersky Lab Capture the Flag (CTF) security competition, please register at http://ctf.kaspersky.com. Registration is open until November 24, 2018.
About Kaspersky CTF
This is the fourth annual Kaspersky Lab CTF competition, designed to challenge participants to solve industrial cyber security problems. Since 2015, more than 300 teams have already participated in competitions, getting their hands on advanced models of different enterprise systems. Contest conditions are always close to real-life: Kaspersky Lab provides exact copies of the systems and equipment installed in modern enterprises.
About Kaspersky Lab
Kaspersky Lab is a global cybersecurity company which has been operating in the market for over 20 years. Kaspersky Lab’s deep threat intelligence and security expertise is constantly transforming into next generation security solutions and services to protect businesses, critical infrastructure, governments and consumers around the globe. The company’s comprehensive security portfolio includes leading endpoint protection and a number of specialized security solutions and services to fight sophisticated and evolving digital threats. Over 400 million users are protected by Kaspersky Lab technologies and we help 270,000 corporate clients protect what matters most to them. Learn more at www.kaspersky.com.
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