Austrian team impresses with the world's largest cybersecurity final!

Austrian team impresses with the world's largest cybersecurity final!

Las Vegas, USA - In the exciting world of Cybersecurity, DEF Con is probably the most prestigious competition that can be imagined. The grand finale took place from August 7th to 10th, 2025 in Las Vegas, where students and researchers from the St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences and their team “Kuk Hofhackerei” caused a sensation. Overall, they took 9th place in the Capture-the-Flag contest (CTF), a format that is very popular with the cybersecurity enthusiasts.

The final was the highlight of a competition in which over 1,300 teams took part. In advance, the Austrian team was able to show remarkable achievements and secure 6th place. “Eisenstark” certainly belongs to the right description, because it was the first time since 2012 that an Austrian team had the opportunity to play in the final. Christoph Lang-Muhr, head of the Master's course Information Security at the St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences, was proud and congratulated the team for their success.

intensive days in Las Vegas

The three days in Las Vegas were not only challenging for the members of "Kuk Hofhackerei", but also full of pleasure and teamwork. The team consists of around 40 members who are made up of Bachelor and Master students as well as PhD students and IT security professionals from Dynatrace. This diversity ensures that innovative knowledge and fresh perspectives flow together, which is of great advantage for the team.

The challenges that participants had to deal with in the course of the competition included aspects such as web exploitation, cryptography and reverse engineering. For example, the preliminary tasks were about hacking websites and cracking unsafe cryptography. A real review of the skills that has been achieved with a lot of skill and technical sophistication.

The support counts

On the sidelines of the competition it became clear that this success is not only due to the skills of the students. Support came from universities, universities of applied sciences and sponsors from industry. This close cooperation between academia and industry is crucial in the field of cybersecurity, where innovation and practical knowledge go hand in hand.

In addition to the practical skills, which were tested in competition, the focus is also on the development of programming languages such as Python. Here, for example, in PEP 3107, the importance of the functional annotations that clarify the types of inputs and expenses in Python. This can be of great importance for prospective IT professionals in the security industry when it comes to making their programs more predictable and effective. An exemplary function that calculates the kinetic energy effectively and demonstrates how they can be used in practice.

In the fast-moving world of technology, such competitions are also an opportunity to show the offspring how important teamwork, creativity and technical know-how are. The DEF Con remains an essential part of the cybersecurity culture and an excellent springboard for emerging talents.