"CMU Hacking Team Defends Title at MITRE Cybersecurity Competition"

Carnegie Mellon University's competitive hacking team, the Plaid Parliament of Pwning (PPP), won the top prize at the MITRE Embedded Capture-the-Flag (eCTF) cybersecurity competition for the second year in a row. PPP and 79 other collegiate-level teams worked for three months to design and implement a key fob system for a car door lock, securing the car from unauthorized entry and preventing attacks such as replays and key fob cloning. The yearly competition drew teams from around the world, with a record-breaking 546 student participants. The competition was divided into two parts: design and attack. Each phase provided chances to earn points by collecting flags and sending them to the live eCTF scoreboard. Hackers acted as a team of engineers at a car manufacturer throughout the design process, designing and building the embedded software that would be provisioned on the next line of cars and key fobs sold to customers. During the attack phase, teams had the opportunity to assess the designs of other groups, uncovering security holes as they attempted to unlock and start the vehicles without the vehicle owners' authorization. This article continues to discuss CMU's competitive hacking team PPP winning at the MITRE eCTF cybersecurity competition as well as the structure and benefits of eCTF competitions.

CyLab reports "CMU Hacking Team Defends Title at MITRE Cybersecurity Competition"