The Standoff winners at PHDays qualified to participate in HITB CyberWeek

World's top 25 CTF teams will battle for $100,000 at the HITB CyberWeek conference in Abu Dhabi from 12 to 17 October 2019. The best attacker teams of the last two PHDays (True0xA3 and Hack.ERS) were invited to participate in the finals in the UAE.

To recap, Hack.ERS (Deloitte) pulled out a victory last minutes of the contest. One hour before the end of the cyberbattle, the city defenders decided to try living without its antifraud system. The team Hack.ERS rose to the occasion by cleaning out the bank. Previously hovering around last place, Hack.ERS rose to kick CAICA (last year's champions) out of first place.

"It is exciting that PHDays keeps such high standards abroad, and The Standoff winners may try their hand at competing with the best CTF teams in the world. We are eager to take any opportunity to build up team spirit, better coordinate team efforts, and feel connected to the international IS community," says Ivan Nagornov, Hack.ERS captain.

In 2019, True0xA3 (Informzaschita) remained a leader during the whole two days of the contest using loads of various techniques. The team hacked vulnerable infrastructure objects and kept them under control for two days.

"I still cannot believe that we are going to compete with such teams as PPP and Eat Sleep Pwn Repeat in the UAE. The victory inspired us to take a shot at even bigger challenges. "The fact that The Standoff winners are going to take part in Hack In The Box, one of the leading IS conferences, and will go to the UAE for free, is simply exciting," says Vitaly Malkin, Head of the security analysis department at Informzaschita, True0xA3 captain. Of course we are happy to be the strongest team in the CIS. But we would like to show what we can do at the global stage and share experience.

"Hack in The Box is held since 2002 and is one of the most important information security events in the world. HITB CyberWeek is like world cup finals among hacker teams. The fact that The Standoff winners from 2019 and 2018 were invited to participate in the finals without try-outs is recognition of the PHDays contest high level," says Mikhail Levin, member of the PHDays organizing committee and The Standoff organizer.

"The Stand Off is easily one of the most challenging attack and defense contests around. The fact that teams are essentially competing to find real-world vulnerabilities and simulating what attackers are doing in the wild is simply amazing! We are extremely excited to have not only the winners from PHDays 2019 joining our CyberWeek PRO CTF, but also the champions from 2018. Simply put, this competition in October is going to be one of the greatest gatherings of pure CTF talent under one roof," says Dhillon Andrew Kannabhiran, Founder/Chief Executive Officer, Hack In The Box.

Read more about CTF in Abu Dhabi at the HITB CyberWeek official website: https://proctf.hitb.org/.