«Capture the flag» is a competition initiated by  RWTH Aachen University  in Germany. The purpose of the game is to conquer the opponents' flag. Each team must protect their computer and try to hack and exploit the vulnerabilities of the other teams' computers. All teams start with exactly the same set-up at their computers, and then they had one hour to prepare for attacks from the other teams.

An important part of the game is to build the capital, this is done by capturing flags from the other teams as well as buying and selling knowledge on the black market.

-The contest lasted for twelve hours. At 17 pm our computer was released and the first challenge was to get access to the computer since we did not have the password. Afterwards they told us that we had the most complicated solution to achieve access, that was kind of fun, the students Kjetil Tangen Gardåsen, Erik Amund Høgdahl Bae and Benjamin Adolphi tell.

Students who participated in the competition are students at Bachelor in information security, Master in information security and exchange students. -This was very fun. We performed better than we expected. It is the first time we are involved in a competition like this and we worked intensively for 12 hours and learned new things, the three students say.

Assosciate professor Hanno Langweg and Lasse Øverlier are pleased with the students. -They got good experience using genuine code and exploiting this in a best possible way. An important aspect of the competition is the time pressure, you can see scores of the other teams all the time.

Langweg is responsible for the course Software Security which the competition was a part of, and if possible he will establish a team for the competition next year as well. -This is a good learning experience for the students. Hopefully there will be more teams from other universities and university colleges in Norway next year. Gjøvik University College was the only Norwegian team this year.

Behind from left: Erik Amund Høgdahl Bae and Hanno Langweg.
In front from left: Kjetil Tangen Gardåsen and Benjamin Adolphi