HTB Business CTF 2022: A record-breaking recap

We had high expectations for our 2022 Business CTF after the resounding success of our first event. And to say this year’s results exceeded our expectations would be the understatement of the century!

Thanks to you, we helped more than 650 teams and nearly 3,000 people from around the world engage in friendly competition while putting their skills and knowledge to the test - surpassing the number of participants from last year by 83%.

“Amazing experience working with HTB. Not only is it a very complete and fun hacking learning platform, but also the team is full of talent and creativity and will support your CTF setups in a very professional way. I’m looking forward to continuing this great collaboration.”

 

Ignacio Arsuaga, Global Cybersecurity Enterprise Architect, Siemens

Capturing a fierce band of financial cybercriminals 

This year's CTF kicked things up a notch with an all-new Dirty Money storyline. 

We invited corporate teams to join Enigma, a multinational law enforcement agency (whose name was inspired by Alan Turing, the father of modern computer science) to help take down malicious actors responsible for crimes including wire fraud, phishing campaigns, crypto laundering, and more. 

With investments, retirement savings, and college funds on the line, it was all hands on deck to follow the money and uncover those responsible for their crimes.

To do this, we created more than 30 challenges to complete including forensic, web, crypto, pwn, machines, and more. While working through the challenges, players enjoyed exclusive content and hands-on activities designed to simulate real-world attacks. 

We were thrilled to have numerous large-scale companies participate, several of which you might recognize:

• Accenture

• Carrefour

• Cisco

• Deloitte

• Lufthansa

The Winners

The competition was steep, but at the end of the day, only one team could take the top spot and claim the Ultimate Hacking Cup. 

Before sharing this year’s top teams, we want to once again thank every participant who joined and worked through our challenges. It’s because of you that we’re able to educate current and future generations of cybersecurity professionals.

“At mnemonic, as leaders in the cybersecurity industry in the Nordics, we pursue excellence in order to reach the highest quality for our customers. That's why we choose providers with our same goal, as HTB, to train our team. Every initiative with their logo means high quality, and so was the Business CTF, which we used to get our interns into the hacking world at the same time as the new hires and the more experienced members sharpened their skills. It was fun as well as rewarding to spend that weekend working together and sharing knowledge. I will definitely join for similar events in the future.”

 

Pablo Ruiz Encinas, Security Consultant, Mnemonic

And without further ado, this year’s winners are:

• First Place - Improsec

• Second Place - Institut for Cyber Risk

• Third Place - IntegrityTech

• Fourth Place - Secura

You can’t see us, but we’re giving everyone a huge round of applause for all of their hard work and effort! We hope you’re as proud of yourselves as we are!

The Prizes (worth $50,000)

Bragging rights are always a great prize. But for this competition we raised the stakes by offering more than $50,000 in prizes for our top challengers:

• First place: Winners each took home the exclusive Business CTF 2022 trophy, 3 months of free access to our cloud security certification, BlackSky, and $100 gift cards for the HTB Swag Store!

• Second place: Each winner received the HTB Certified Bug Bounty Hunter certificate along with $50 gift cards for the HTB swag store!

• Third place: The team won 6 months of free access to our dedicated lab platform in addition to a $25 HTB swag store gift card!

If you think these prizes sound good, just wait until you see what we’re offering next year.

The Sponsors

In addition to our HTB Community, we can’t thank our incredible group of sponsors enough for being involved and supporting our event. 

A huge shout-out goes to our diamond sponsor, SNYK, and our Base sponsors, CANCOM, ExpressVPN, and WithSecure, without whom this wouldn’t have been possible.

The Stats

Because those of us in the cybersecurity industry love to analyze the details, we thought we’d give you the inside scoop on this year’s results:

• 2,979 players participated in our friendly competition

• 1,856 flags were submitted

• 657 corporate teams joined

• 84 countries were represented

• 33 challenges between 8 machines

• 95 certificates were given out

• 150 CPEs were earned

• $50,000 in prizes have been distributed to our winners!

Last, but certainly not least, we want to thank our amazing HTB team members who helped make our Business CTF dreams a reality!

The Socials

Watch the pre-business CTF talks

From beginning to end, we wanted to keep you in the loop and excited for this year’s event. If you’d like to relive the fun, you can view our pre-business CTF talks by clicking the link below.

Run a CTF for your company (and more) 

Be sure to visit our Business CTF page to learn how your company can run its own Capture The Flag event.

Hack The Box also has countless CyberSecurity training programs designed to help you close skills gaps, hire top talent, and protect your infrastructure.

Check out our Dedicated Labs, Professional Labs, and HTB Academy for Business if you’re interested in exploring other interactive and hands-on training opportunities.

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