Researchers have not found an explanation for the strange conditions of the competition.
As part of the ethical hacking competition in China, held at the end of last year, participants could work not on a virtual platform, but on a real network, which raises serious questions among researchers. The unusual conditions and secrecy that surrounded the Zhujian Cup led to suspicions that the students were engaged in a real intelligence operation.
Typically, hacking competitions such as "Capture the Flag" (CTF) are held on closed networks specifically designed for safe attacks. However, the Zhujian Cup competition, organized by Northwestern Polytechnic University in Xi'an, did not mention any of the companies responsible for creating such networks, raising doubts among researchers that the competition was held at all on a simulation.
Participants of the competition signed a document obliging them to keep the tasks secret, not to destroy the goals and remove traces of their actions upon completion. This adds to the mystery of what is happening and hints at the possibility that the hackers gathered at the competition were working with a real network. In the event of a data breach, students would be held legally liable, which is also highly unusual for such competitions.
Researchers from Western universities who studied this competition found many suspicious details. One of them was the requirement to remove backdoors installed on the attacked systems. Usually, such measures are not required in such competitions, because everything takes place in a virtual environment. However, in the case of the Zhujian Cup, it seems that the students were able to infiltrate real networks.
The competition was held at the end of December last year, during the holidays, when many companies worked on reduced schedules, which made them less protected from cyberattacks. More than 200 students participated in three stages of the competition, including the theoretical part, the search for vulnerabilities and the "public goal". It was the latter stage that attracted the attention of researchers as potentially related to the real network.
The authors of the study, published in the Atlantic Council, admit that they have no direct evidence that students attacked real networks. However, in their opinion, the probability of this is about 85%, since they did not find any other explanations for the strange conditions of the competition.
Cyber competitions in China have become an important tool for the development of national personnel since 2015, when large-scale cyberattacks carried out by the United States became known. Since then, China has been actively developing internal CTF competitions to attract talent and improve national cybersecurity.
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As part of the ethical hacking competition in China, held at the end of last year, participants could work not on a virtual platform, but on a real network, which raises serious questions among researchers. The unusual conditions and secrecy that surrounded the Zhujian Cup led to suspicions that the students were engaged in a real intelligence operation.
Typically, hacking competitions such as "Capture the Flag" (CTF) are held on closed networks specifically designed for safe attacks. However, the Zhujian Cup competition, organized by Northwestern Polytechnic University in Xi'an, did not mention any of the companies responsible for creating such networks, raising doubts among researchers that the competition was held at all on a simulation.
Participants of the competition signed a document obliging them to keep the tasks secret, not to destroy the goals and remove traces of their actions upon completion. This adds to the mystery of what is happening and hints at the possibility that the hackers gathered at the competition were working with a real network. In the event of a data breach, students would be held legally liable, which is also highly unusual for such competitions.
Researchers from Western universities who studied this competition found many suspicious details. One of them was the requirement to remove backdoors installed on the attacked systems. Usually, such measures are not required in such competitions, because everything takes place in a virtual environment. However, in the case of the Zhujian Cup, it seems that the students were able to infiltrate real networks.
The competition was held at the end of December last year, during the holidays, when many companies worked on reduced schedules, which made them less protected from cyberattacks. More than 200 students participated in three stages of the competition, including the theoretical part, the search for vulnerabilities and the "public goal". It was the latter stage that attracted the attention of researchers as potentially related to the real network.
The authors of the study, published in the Atlantic Council, admit that they have no direct evidence that students attacked real networks. However, in their opinion, the probability of this is about 85%, since they did not find any other explanations for the strange conditions of the competition.
Cyber competitions in China have become an important tool for the development of national personnel since 2015, when large-scale cyberattacks carried out by the United States became known. Since then, China has been actively developing internal CTF competitions to attract talent and improve national cybersecurity.
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