The German Hacking Championship

I want to show you an event. These are German students from school or university participating in the German Hacking Championship – DHM, die Deutsche Hacking Meisterschaft. These are the finalists competing to win the championship. In a multi-day event they got to play CTF, compete against each other, but also hang out, get to know each other, build relationships that could last forever, and network with companies they maybe later want to work for. I was there last year in Bonn to hang out and meet the participants, and I had a ton of fun. There was also a sponsored CTF challenge, and I was standing there and just thinking, “Wow, this is such a great opportunity for these young people, and I know all of them will have great careers in their life. ” Down there you can see the team sitting at individual tables, and in the middle of that table there's a light that will go off when they solve a challenge. And actually, now on the second day, there aren’t that many hours left. We actually see that the Cyber Security Challenge participants—the individuals that were put together in teams—are dominating the scoreboard in front of all the established CTF teams, and we were actually wondering why that is. We thought that teams used to playing together would be way better than essentially strangers working together on challenges. But there's one theory we had which probably is the reason for that: people in CTF teams were also participating as individuals in the Cyber Security Challenge Germany, and when they qualified and accepted to go to the finals, they were not playing for the real CTF team. This is kind of a disadvantage for the regular CTF teams because maybe good individuals are now playing in different teams. But it doesn't really matter—the advantage is that now so many teams, so many people come together, play together, and compete together. Overall, I think it's a great experience for all of them. There's one other thing that this CTF does really, really well. It's an idea I hadn't thought about before—and maybe it exists elsewhere—but it was new to me. I want to share it with you because I think it's a really cool concept. In the CTF, they have partner challenges; these are challenges made by sponsors. It's important that these challenges are really good because there have been experiences with really, really bad challenges in the past that were very cringe. But if those sponsors put a lot of effort into the challenges, they create a very unique environment. For example, we had one sponsor who works with a lot of banks, so they brought an ATM hacking challenge. They custom-built this ATM and even printed official 0 Euro notes for this challenge. They have no monetary value, but they come out of the same printing and manufacturing process as real bills. So, they are essentially real bills, but of zero value. It's still really cool— you have this ATM you have to hack, and if you hit the jackpot, it ejects the money. It's a really, really cool experience. So if you are German and between the ages of 14 to 25, then definitely watch this video. I think this is a really great opportunity for you. A long time ago—over 10 years ago—I participated in the Cyber Security Challenge Germany, a CTF for individuals (not for teams) and specifically for German students, and I also reached the German finals. I discovered the CTF while I was in university; I had just finished my bachelor's degree and moved to Berlin for my master's degree in computer science. I was an avid CTF player, and when I discovered this qualification CTF called Cyber Security Challenge Germany, I was cringing at the name and was just participating as a joke. It turned out to be more impactful to my life than I anticipated. The ALLES! CTF team that I play with formed out of participants back then. We were competing against each other in the CSCG, but we also wanted to play together in other CTFs. Many of the participants started working in various IT security jobs and even founded their own companies. There's even one large company called Neodyme, made up mostly of former CSCG and ALLES! CTF team members. Also, two of my best friends I met at CSCG back then have been my friends for over 10 years now. An event like this can be a huge opportunity for young people, and many of us former participants experienced exactly this. That's why a few years ago we founded a non-profit organization called NFITS – "Nachwuchsförderung IT-Sicherheit" – to take over the organization of CSCG. So nowadays it’s a competition organized by CTF players for CTF players, all volunteers (including me, although admittedly I do a lot less than many others). But at least I make this video, because this event is very important to me, and if you want to support this event, also check out the NFITS donation page. Anyway, NFITS eventually also joined forces with the Cyber Security Rumble—another CTF competition from Germany for teams—and together we are now organizing the Deutsche Hacking Meisterschaft, which is the finals event.

So if this sounds interesting to you, then let me share a few details on how you can get to DHM. DHM is basically the finals event combining CSCG—the individual CTF—with other CTF competitions. From CSCG, the best 18 juniors (German students from the age of 14 to 20) and the best 18 German seniors (from the age of 21 to 25) get invited, along with 6 of the best participants in the “Eath” category, which contains anybody else from the DACH region who doesn't fit into the junior or senior category. So this is still relevant for you if you are not a student right now, besides those that qualify from the CSCG competition. Additionally, an alumni team from former finalists is invited, along with multiple CTF teams that also qualified from other DACH CTF events like FaustCTF, GlacierCTF, HackLu, and Saarsec. So in total there will be 72 participants that will compete against each other in teams in an epic CTF finals competition. The finals this year will be held in Heilbronn from the 16th of June until the 20th of June. So if you want to be there as well, check out the Cyber Security Challenge Germany website to see more details. The CSCG CTF will run from the beginning of March until the end of April, so there's plenty of time, but you should also not procrastinate. Go check out the event right now—you can find all the links in the description. Oh, and by the way, the German Championship is just one in a list of a whole set of European events. Out of the participants in these German finals, a German national team will be formed to compete on the European level in the European Cyber Security Challenge. So if you are not from Germany, go check out the ECSC site to find out how the competition in your country looks like and how you can also qualify for the European finals. So, as I said, I think this is a really great opportunity. You should really think about participating, and also please share this video with your friends who might be interested in it. And if you are a teacher or a parent and you know kids and young adults that are very motivated and eager to learn more about hacking and compete in a safe and fun environment—and help them network with future employers—please help us and share this with them. Not only will they meet like-minded people and create new friendships that could last a lifetime, but there will also be a few companies they can network with, and maybe one of those companies will be the first job they take once they get out of school. So check out the links in the description if you want to learn more and participate, and also join the CSCG Discord if you want to meet other German hackers. If you want to learn more about hacking, check out our online training platform hextree. io. We are still in early access, so there is still lots of content that we need to create, but I am still very proud of what we have created so far. So come and check out our courses on hextree. io.