Nixu’s team wins 2nd place at the Global CyberLympics in Atlanta, Georgia, USA

A team of Nixu’s top-notch cyber defense experts (Team NX) took second place at the Global CyberLympics World Finals in Atlanta, Georgia, USA on September 13-14, 2018. 

CyberLympics is a cybersecurity competition for ethical hackers. It pits teams from all over the world to against one another in a series of challenges in the areas of Digital Forensics, Web Application Exploitation, System Exploitation, Malware Analysis, Reverse Engineering, Cryptography, and Trivia. The top two teams from each continent and last year's winner make their way to the finals, which this year took place in Atlanta.

Nixu’s six-member team of cybersecurity experts faced fierce competition from teams including professionals from major tech companies. NX managed to tackle various cybersecurity challenges and solved them successfully one after another on its way to the finals – and all the way to the podium. 

“Our success was based on strong willpower, lots of coffee, and a bit of luck,” commented the Nixu team modestly.

The competition included a series of challenges that started with blunt physical security and progressed to cybersecurity expertise.

First, the teams were given a plastic box containing various items such as shredded documents - memos and diagrams - and were asked to answer questions related to the materials.

As a second task, it was revealed that each team had a Bluetooth lock attached to their tables which had to be unlocked. Teams were also provided with a USB thumb drive which contained the competition tasks in encrypted archives and some captured Bluetooth traffic.

The installation of the necessary tools and distinguishing the lock from all the Bluetooth noise in the room was quite a challenge. In the end, there were only two teams, TSS and NX, who were able to get their Bluetooth locks open. There was a catch to solving the lock challenge. The faster the teams did it, the faster they got the network equipment, which gave them access to the tournament system. 

From pretty early on, the top 4 teams, NX, SectorC, TSS and hack.ERS, put considerable distance between themselves and the rest of the competitors. Team NX led the first seven hours of the eight-hour competition, while others were very close behind. During the last 60 minutes, Nixu’s team started to lose its leading position. 

Team NX finished in second place behind SectorC, and Team TSS took third place in the CyberLympics 2018. 

“We were really happy with the outcome. It was amazing to bring Nixu home a silver medal in the first year that we made it to the finals,” commented Team NX with a big grin.