▲ Team DEFKOR at last year’s DEFKON CTF. Provided by etnews.com.

Korea University (KU) students are proving themselves yet again at the world’s most prestigious hackers’ competition called DEFCON Capture the Flag (DEFCON CTF), an annual event held in Las Vegas. Team DEFCOR, made up of eight KU students and members from a professional cybersecurity firm, has passed the preliminaries with flying colors that was held from May 20 to 22, taking the second place after the United States (U.S.) team PPP. The expectations are high as DEFCOR is the defending champion from last year, scoring an unprecedented victory for South Korea.

The students mentioned above are members of CyKor, a cybersecurity club in KU. CyKor has been dominating the field lately by winning competitions after competitions. After the success at last year’s DEFCON, CyKor went on to claim the first place at the Collegiate Division of Code Gate 2016, another large-scale hackers’ convention where a total of 29 Korean universities competed against one another.

However, the odds are against the students at this year’s DEFCON as PPP, their main rival, has become the favorite to win. Professor Kim Seung Ju (Department of Cyber Defense) said “the U.S. has produced individuals equipped with hacking skills and an in-depth knowledge about data processing.” He further elaborated that South Korea also needs to devise a curriculum for white hackers to be trained in data processing and math as well.