Many people walking through UCSB’s Harold Frank building last Friday, December 2, could have mistaken the active computer lab for the average finals week scene, never knowing these students were two teams of student hackers laundering fake money across the globe in an attempt to win an elaborate game of capture the flag in the world’s largest computer hacking competition.
These competitors, Team Omega and Mojojojo, took 34th and 12th respectively out of 85 teams at the International Capture the Flag Competition (iCTF), which was founded nine years ago by UCSB professor Giovanni Vigna and is still hosted on campus. The two UCSB teams were each one-half of Vigna’s graduate-level Advanced Topics in Security class. To add to the pressure, this was their final.
“We have the world’s largest hacking competition, and it’s only open to academic institutions, which makes it very prominent,” said Vigna. Adobe International provided prize money: $2,000 for the first-place team, $1,000 for second, and $500 for third. The winner is also invited to compete in DEFCON; the world’s premiere hacking competition held in Las Vegas annually.