WhiteHat Grand Prix 2015 Finals: Thrilling to the last minute
07:10:00 | 22-02-2016

At 2:00 (UTC), December 19, the competition of 10 teams in the Final Round of WhiteHat Grand Prix - Global challenge 2015 officially took place. In 8 hours continuously, CTF top teams all over the world brought security lovers an attractive and aggressive competition to the last minute.

The final result is 217 from Taiwan became the champion after a close race of Samurai Canada in the last minutes of the Final Round. PPP (US), though being the top in the Qualification Round, sadly accepted the 3rd place with only 100 points fewer than the runner-up Samurai.

Here is the main stream in the Final Round of WhiteHat Grand Prix - Global challenge 2015:

At 2:00 (UTC), Mr. Ngo Tuan Anh – Bkav Vice President of Internet security and Mr. Nguyen Huy Dung officially opened the vulnerable services of the Final Round

The Final Round saw the presence of 10 excellent teams from the Qualification Round from USA, Canada, Taiwan, Poland, Russia, Ukraine and Vietnam. 6 of them are in the world top 10 according CTFTime (website ranking global cybersecurity competitions).

Team of technical support and supervision accompanied teams throughout 8 hours of the Final Round of WhiteHat Grand Prix 2015

At 3:00 (UTC) Shellfish became the first team naming on the Scoreboard. The team continuously had successful attacks to the systems of RoadToRome, BabyPhD and PPP, gaining 300 points. Shellphish from the US currently ranks the 5th on CTFTime.

Following ShellphishRoadToRomeBabyPhD and Samurai respectively appeared on the Scoreboard.

The Final Round of WhiteHat Grand Prix - Global challenge 2015 was in the format of Attack/Defense. A team can score unlimited points.

After 2 hours, the Scoreboard saw the names of 7 teams: RoadToRome, Samurai, Shellphish, BabyPhD, PPP, dcua, More Smoked Leet Chicken. Host RoadToRome temporarily occupied the leading position.

Dragon Sector had a fairly quiet start. The runner-up of CTFTime only showed its ability about 3 hours after the beginning of the Final Round. The team from Poland had successful consecutive attacks and became the leader of the Scoreboard with 1400 points.

PPP started speeding up after a half of the competition. The team from Carnegie Mellon - 1 in 4 US leading universities of information technology mostly occupied the first place on the Scoreboard in the second half of the Final.

The score of defense is verified on 2 factors: confidentiality (that service's flag has not been exploited by any team), availability (that service functions as it is designed to).

On the online support channel of the Organizer, member sewilton from Samurai (Canada) expressed his excitement with the competition: "I really enjoy your WhiteHat Grand Prix 2015. I am looking forward to next year".

45 minutes left, the Final Round of  WhiteHat Grand Prix - Global challenge 2015 would officially finish. Via the online support channel of the Organizer, participants shared their excitement with the thrilling competition of top teams in the last minutes.

9:50 The last 10 minutes left, 217 successfully exploited service Pwn400, now just 300 points fewer than the 2nd position PPP.

Not only that, the team continued to successfully exploited services and surpassed the temporarily leading team Samurai from Canada.

Members of the technical support team could not sit still but all stood up, holding their breath to watch the unexpected occurrence in the last minutes.

1 minute later, Samurai surpassed.

Only 1 minute after that, 217 gained points.

10:00 The Final Round of WhiteHat Grand Prix - Global challenge 2015 officially closed with the breathless race of Samurai (Canada) and 217 (Taiwan) in the last minutes.

The final result is 217 from Taiwan excellently became the champion of WhiteHat Grand Prix - Global challenge 2015, winning the prize of 10,000. Samurai from Canada ranked the 2nd position. The 3rd place belonged to PPP from the US.

2 teams from Vietnam, BabyPhD and RoadToRome though not being listed in top 3 had excellent performance, sometimes leading the Scoreboard.

The final result of the Scoreboard is:

WhiteHat Grand Prix - Global challenge 2015 is the first global information security and safety competition held by Vietnam. As the host, this is an opportunity for Vietnam to expand its cybersecurity activities to the world.

Deputy Director Nguyen Huy Dung – Department of Information Security, Viet Nam Ministry of Information and Communications was the special guest at the Opening ceremony of the Final Round of WhiteHat Grand Prix - Global challenge 2015.

In his speech, Mr. Dung stated: "The competition attracted a large number of teams around the world. The Qualification Round with 500 teams implied a very stiff competition. In particular, 6 of 10 teams to the Final Round are holding high rankings on the chart of global cybersecurity competitions. In addition, the competition had the participation of strong teams such as USA, Canada, South Korea... Thus, I see the quality and huge significance of the competition, especially in the context that Vietnam needs to promote and develop resources in the field of information safety and security".

Bkav