Making Money on Cyberwar

It is well known that insider info about ups and downs of large corporations, if gained in time and played right, can earn you millions on the stock market. It’s hackers’ prerogative to get hold of such data or to influence a company’s activity by cracking critical business systems. So why not make some dough on your skill at Positive Hack Days V?

This year PHDays participants will be able to become part of our virtual country — the United States of Soviet Unions (USSU) — and trade stocks on the PHDays Stock Market. All forum attendees will be able to buy and sell “company” stocks (firsthand or using a broker) and gain advantage from insider info on the stock market.

The hacker contest participants will be able to effect share prices by hacking railway companies, power plants, news agency sites, and other resources. In addition, successful hacking attacks may give you some useful information.

You may spend virtual money to treat yourself to a drink in our bar or to buy souvenirs with the forum’s logo. For additional info, feel free to address our specialists that will be located next to the bar counter in the WTC Congress Hall.

PHDays СTF

PHDays CTF annual international competitions in information security have gained recognition due to their carefully crafted plotline and realism. This time the CTF will differ from anything you’ve seen before. The defining feature of the new event is the PHDays Stock Market. Technically, it’s a customary task-based CTF with a fair amount of innovations and assumptions.

According to the 2015 scenario, each team will play the part of a hacker gang operating in the USSU, which has its power industry, transportation and banking systems, telecoms, and media; and at the heart of economic and political life of the country is a stock market.

In order to win, teams will have to accomplish various tasks distributed by the underground labor market DarkNet, e.g. to intercept GSM traffic between an ATM and the processor (the Leave ATM Alone contest), collide trains (Choo Choo Pwn), and uncover a CEO of a large corporation (Competitive Intelligence).

Corporate hacks will allow you to make money by trading stocks on the PHDays Stock Market: attacks affect share prices, and obtained insider info will help you to speculate wisely.

You may compromise company resources via Internet (Competitive Intelligence and WAF Bypass) or locally, while on stage (Leave ATM Alone, Hacknet, and other contests).

Just like in real life, CTF participants may decide not to share their exploits and use their knowledge to get dirty rich on the stock market or to sell it on the BlackMarket hacker forum. In addition, you may get reward for any advisory that you submit to the USSU CERT.

For closed orders and advisories sent to the CERT, teams will receive money in virtual currency — publes. The team that receives the most amount of publes wins.

This year any forum participant may join the fun. If you have a ticket to PHDays and want to create a team, you may register at any moment up until the first day of the forum — May 26, 9:00 a.m. Moscow time. All you need is to assemble a team of three PHDays participants or more and send your info to phd [at] ptsecurity.com.