Fifth annual competition arms young professionals with critical industry skills

DALLAS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704), a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, today announced the winners of its global Capture the Flag (CTF) competition, which challenges global cybersecurity talent and provides real-world experience in today’s most critical threat areas.

Now in its fifth year, the Raimund Genes Cup finals consisted of 13 teams, including the top 10 teams from the online qualifier. Additionally, three teams from Trend Micro regional events in Brazil, Egypt and the Netherlands were invited to join the final global competition. Teams faced off in Tokyo, Japan on November 23-24. The winners are as follows:

First place: p4, Poland
Second place: GASoline Beta, China
Third place: Balsn, Taiwan

The winning team received JPY1,000,000 (around US $9,000) and 15,000 Zero Day Initiative Rewards Program points per player. The second and third place teams received JPY300,000 and JPY200,000, (nearly US$3,000 and $2,000 respectively).

“Global organizations are struggling to keep up the defenses against a determined and increasingly well-resourced enemy backed by a trillion-dollar cybercrime economy – putting corporate finances, data and information at risk,” said Mike Gibson, vice president of threat research for Trend Micro. “Our CTF attracts highly skilled security talent from around the world who work to combat attackers and want to further their knowledge. Partnering with security professionals from outside Trend Micro helps make the security industry stronger.”

Trend Micro researchers designed the real-world scenarios in this CTF event to test the teams’ expertise in skills that are highly sought-after by employers. Challenges focused on areas such as forensics and exploitation, IoT, reverse engineering, open source intelligence, mobile, and machine learning.

“Hosting a CTF event that is both challenging and fun is difficult, and many are unable to do it well,” said Alan Lee, manager of the HITCON CTF. “Trend Micro’s annual event meets these expectations, challenging teams in critical areas that are most needed to defend against today’s threats. We are happy to have the winning team qualify for the HITCON CTF.”

This year’s Trend Micro CTF consisted of two rounds: an online qualifier and the finals. The online qualifier took place on September 7-8, featuring Jeopardy-style questions that challenged participants to solve various security problems at speed.

The worldwide cybersecurity skills shortage now stands at more than four million, including 561,000 in North America¹. To cope with this increased hiring demand, the global security workforce needs to increase by a staggering 145%.

Trend Micro hosts and supports over 50 CTF-style competitions annually around the world, including 15 in collaboration with the Organization of American States,² which are specific to women across the Americas. These combined efforts are helping to shape the next generation of cybersecurity professionals.

For more information on Trend Micro’s CTF, please visit: www.trendmicro.com/tmctf.