Your favorite Austrian hacking team, KuK Hofhackerei 🇦🇹, took 9th place at DEFCON CTF 33!

As we qualified for DEFCON CTF 33 in the DEFCON CTF Qualifiers with 6th place, it was clear that we would go to Las Vegas for this year’s finals. Then, after an intense three days of hacking and a lot of Red Bull Energy Drinks, we secured 9th place. We are so proud of our performance as first-timers, and we already have our sights set on next year.

Props to all the other teams for an intense fight over the three days. Thanks also to the organizers, the Nautilus Institute, for the solid infrastructure, tough challenges, and for being such cool folks.

Bringing 30 people to Las Vegas for the DEFCON CTF was a major challenge — both financially and logistically! Therefore, we want to give a huge thank you to our sponsors who made this endeavor possible.

First and foremost, we are deeply grateful to our Platinum Sponsors, Dynatrace and Erste Bank, for their generous support. We also received tremendous backing from academia, with TU Wien, TU Graz, and SBA Research as Gold Sponsors, and FH St. Pölten and JKU Linz as Silver Sponsors. Furthermore, we would like to recognize Bosch and Siemens for their support as Silver Sponsors. Also, a special thanks to CyberSecurity Austria for their invaluable support.