In 1985, E.T. phoned home, Michael Jordan was named Rookie of the Year and Cherry Coke hit store shelves. That same year, top computer security professionals convened in McLean, Virginia, for what would become the first Annual Computer Security Applications Conference, or ACSAC.

The group of experts discussed and debated newly released reports on an emerging area of concern: computer crime.

This year, ACSAC celebrated its 40th installment. It is now one of the world’s oldest computer security conferences. At a five-day event in December at the Alohilani Resort in Honolulu, Hawaii, leading researchers from academia, industry and government continued their efforts to address pressing cybersecurity concerns.

ACSAC conference organizers figured the pros could use a bit of friendly competition.

At the conference, researchers from the Center for Cybersecurity and Trusted Foundations, or CTF, announced a surprise hacking competition for conference attendees. CTF is a research laboratory jointly positioned in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering and in the Global Security Initiative at Arizona State University.

The competition design efforts were led by Adam Doupé, an associate professor of computer science and engineering in the Fulton Schools and director of CTF.

“We were hoping to spice up the conference with a competition that ran concurrent with other activities,” he says. “Ideally, the activities exposed attendees to new ideas and concepts in a way that was engaging and fun.”

Working with ACSAC organizers, Doupé and his CTF team developed cybersecurity challenges. Conference attendees competed in a series of capture the flag exercises, playing for Amazon gift cards.

While the hackathon provided some of the world’s best cybersecurity researchers opportunities to showcase their skills, perhaps the biggest prize of all was the bragging rights.

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