KuK Hofhackerei is back from DEF CON!
Team KuK Hofhackerei took 9th place at the DEF CON 33 CTF Finals in Las Vegas!
Picture: Marco Squarcina / KuK Hofhackerei
Team KuK Hofhackerei is back from DEF CON 33!
DEF CON CTF is widely regarded as the world’s most elite hacking competition. The team qualified for the CTF Finals in spring, reaching 6th place and prevailing over more than 1,300 competing teams. KuK Hofhackerei is composed of members from the Austrian CTF community, with students and experts from TU Wien, the University of Vienna, TU Graz, Johannes Kepler Universität Linz, and the St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences. KuK Hofhackerei is supported by the TU Wien Cybersecurity Center, Cybersecurity Austria, SBA Research, Dynatrace, Erste Bank und Sparkasse, Bosch, and Siemens.
DEF CON 33 CTF finals ran over three days at the beginning of August in Las Vegas, Nevada. Like most teams, KuK Hofhackerei split its members between two physical locations: The game arena inside the conference venue and the suites at the Horseshoe hotel. The first challenge as newcomers to DEF CON was ensuring reliable connectivity between the two locations, essential for transferring data and coordinating the team’s efforts. The team had to quickly adapt their custom tools to the game environment and partnered with sponsor Dynatrace to build a custom dashboard that provided a summarized view of all aspects of the game, from the scoreboard to the metrics of the attacking infrastructure. The team ended the day in last place, mainly due to the lack of experience and the limited time for players to get used to the game mechanics. Overnight, KuK Hofhackerei regrouped and analyzed their performance; they identified several areas for improvement, including more effective communication protocols and more efficient task delegation. The team successfully developed several exploits and patches, which were deployed when the game resumed on Saturday. These efforts paid off, and the team climbed the rankings significantly, reaching 7th place.
With increased confidence, team KuK Hofhackerei worked through the second night on all open challenges, developing new exploits while patching the identified vulnerabilities. On the third day, they became the first team to land successful attacks on one of the targets, consolidating 7th place in the attack and defense segment. Other phases of the competition included Live CTF, a 1-vs-1 hacking tournament, and a “King of the Hill” set of challenges. When all scores were combined, KuK Hofhackerei placed 9th out of 12 teams. In their first appearance at DEF CON CTF, the team delivered an outstanding performance despite competing with only 31 members. For comparison, the top-ranked teams typically field 50 or more elite players with many years of experience. Achieving such results under these conditions is a remarkable success. This milestone marks a promising new chapter for the team and places Austria firmly in the spotlight as a center for ethical hacking.
Congratulations to KuKHofhackerei on this extraordinary achievement!
Team KuK Hofhackerei
- Pedro Bernardo
- Johannes Maximilian Berndorfer
- Lukas Eschbacher
- Georg Felber
- Sebastian Felix
- Dominik Fluch
- Hannah Fluch
- Ernesto Martínez García
- Fabian Gurtner
- Jonas Heschl
- Jakob Kästner
- Jonas Konrad
- Stefan Machherndl
- Georg Merzdovnik
- Markus Müllner
- Leo Pichelbauer
- Patrick Pirker
- Matthias Pleschinger
- Michael Pucher
- Johannes Puinbroek
- Manuel Reinsperger
- Felix Roithmayr
- Andreas Samonik
- Jannik Schager
- Stefan Schweighofer
- Maximilian Seidler
- Felix Slama
- Marco Squarcina
- Stephan Stöger
- Roland Wallner
- Hannes Weissteiner
ABOUT DEF CON
DEF CON is one of the world’s largest and most influential hacker conventions, held annually in Las Vegas. It brings together Hackers, Cybersecurity Professionals, and Researchers from all over the world and features keynotes, workshops, Capture-The-Flag competitions, and hardware hacking villages. It’s a space for learning, collaboration, and pushing the boundaries of technology and security — where locks (both digital and physical) are meant to be picked.
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