South Korea Wins World Hacking Contest For Four Years In A Row

South Korean hacker team Maple Mallardos when receiving the first prize. (Source: Ministry of Science and ICT)

JAKARTA - South Korean hacker team Maple Mallardxides (MMM), won the Capture the Flag (CTF) hacking competition at this year's DEF CON conference, which was held in Las Vegas, United States earlier this month.

The CTF finals, the biggest open computer security hacking competition, were held during the security conference, with four Korean teams SuperDiceCode, Cold Fusion, Friendly Maltese Citizens, and MMM between 12 finalists.

MMM won first place in four consecutive years, showing off their world-class skills, while SuperDiceCode won third place.

"I thank the four teams for their tireless efforts and enthusiasm in proving the expertise of Korean hacker white hat in the world's best international hacking competition," said ICT Minister Bae Kyung-hoon, quoted from The Korea Times August 20.

"We will continue to actively train elite white hat hackers to operate on the front lines of cyber defense," he said.

This victory came just a day after a team from Samsung, KAIST, and Pohang University of Science and Technology won first place in the biennial artificial intelligence competition (AI) held at the conference, AI Cyber Challenge.

The last four teams in the CTF competition consisted of graduates and mentors from Best of the Best (BoB), Korea's best hacker white hat training program run by the Ministry of Science and ICT together with the Korea Information Technology Research Institute (KITRI).

BOB is a nine-month program that includes special training from leading information security experts and team projects.

The mentor team and BoB alumni also won the conference's annual CTF challenge called the Red Alert Industrial Control Systems (ICS), which focuses specifically on ICS protection used on ships and airports. This year's challenge focuses on securing smart cities from cyberattacks, such as those that could cause power cuts.

The mentor team and other alumni presented the results of their research on ship cybersecurity during the conference.

"Since 2015, mentors and alumni of BOB have achieved extraordinary results in various fields," said KITRI President Yoon Joon-sang.

"Entering a new era where AI plays an important role in cybercrime or cyber defense, BoB will not be complacent about past achievements, but will continue to carry out fundamental evolution to further improve its capabilities," he added.