Organizing Large Scale Hacking Competitions

Computer security competitions and challenges are a way to foster innovation and educate students in a highly-motivating setting. In recent years, a number of different security competitions and challenges were carried out, each with different characteristics, configurations, and goals. From 2003 to 2007, the authors carried out a number of live security exercises involving dozens of universities from around the world. These exercises were designed as "Traditional" Capture The Flag competitions, where teams both attacked and defended a virtualized host, which provided several vulnerable services. In 2008 and 2009, they introduced two completely new types of competition: a security "Treasure hunt" and a botnet-inspired competition.