CTF team We_0wn_Y0u secured 3rd place in academic International Capture the Flag (iCTF) contest
![](https://www.sba-research.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/IMG_5114-300x225.jpg)
Last weekend, the SBA-supported CTF team “We_0wn_Y0u” (W0Y) of the TU Wien again showcased its outstanding capabilities. In the academic International Capture the Flag (iCTF) contest they secured the third place out of 78 participating universities worldwide in an 8-hour race. W0Y started receiving points late in the game but managed to overtake the field leaving only Moscow State University (1st) and Saarbrücken University (2nd) in front.
As a novelty, this year, the iCTF also included a 24-hour non-academic contest where W0Y scored 4th out of 317 teams. The 24 hours meant three times more fun (by time), but also unique challenges regarding rest times and shift operations.
![](https://www.sba-research.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/ictf_final_all-300x170.png)
![](https://www.sba-research.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/ictf17academic-300x153.png)
W0Y has a long-standing tradition in participating iCTF since 2005. They managed to be in the top-10 every time and won the competition twice. They comprise outstanding students and teaching staff of the “Internet Security” and “Advanced Internet Security” course-series taught at TU Wien. The courses are a cooperation of the Institute of Computer Aided Automation and the Institute for Software and Interactive Systems. The lectures are sometimes called hacking-course since they teach the unique offensive perspective to enable students to understand attackers and develop secure software in the future.
The iCTF is a so-called “attack-defense” competition. Every team has the same copy of a server to defend against other teams and simultaneously to attack the competitors. Each server provides about a couple of services. Attack points are awarded for every service that a team manages to overtake from another team by stealing a “flag”. Flags are files containing a secret unique to that team and service. Defense points are awarded for keeping the own services running and secure (i.e., not losing any flags).
![](https://www.sba-research.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/team-300x190.jpg)
The team likes to thank the UC Santa Barbara and Arizona State University for organizing the competition.
https://www.w0y.at
http://www.ictf2017.net
https://shellweplayagame.org/
https://ictf.cs.ucsb.edu/pages/archive.html