02:00 October 24 (UTC), the Qualification Round of WhiteHat Grand Prix - Global challenge 2015 officially started. It was a 24-hour aggressive competition of 467 teams from 67 countries like the United States, Russia, Poland, South Korea, Japan ect. and the host country Vietnam.
After 15 minutes, BabyPhD - from Vietnam submitted a correct answer for Re100 challenge, to be the first name on the Scoreboard. Right after that, CTFTime Top 5 dcua (from Ukraine) and r2u (from Vietnam) also scored their first 100 points.
Technical support team for WhiteHat Grand Prix – Global challenge 2015
The Qualification Round had 26 challenges of Web Exploit, Reverse, Pwnable, Forensics and Crypto. The special challenge Viet Nam valued 10% of total existing points of teams.
Each correct answer will open a beautiful photo of a landmark in the host country Vietnam, containing an encrypted hint. By successfully solving the encryption and connecting the hints, teams will find the key for the special challenge Viet Nam.
In the progress of the Qualification Round, new teams continuously registered for the competition. After one hour, there were 363 teams recorded on the system of the Organizer. Leading teams were from Vietnam, the United States, Ukraine and Japan. PPP – Top 1 on CTFTime got the first 100 points, recording its name on the Scoreboard.
After 5 hours, the Qualification Round of WhiteHat Grand Prix 2015 had 347 teams from 61 countries. The number of teams with at least one correct answer was 45.
PPP, BabyPhD and RoadToRome alternatively occupied Top 3 of the Scoreboard. To 08:30 (UTC), the special challenge Viet Nam had not been solved yet.
One member of the Technical support team said: "A half time of the Qualification Round is still, teams' score will change much. However, the Scoreboard also reflects partly the right situation with the appearance of CTFTime's key teams, who are all in Top 10 now".
14:00 (UTC), Top 3 of the Scoreboard were PPP with 3,400 points, RoadToRome and BabyPhD sharing the same score of 2,550. Teams from Vietnam, the US, Taiwan, Poland and South Korea were in Top 10.
17:40 (UTC), CTFTime Top 2 Dragon Sector (from Poland), joining the competition at about 11:00, registered its name to Top 10 of the Scoreboard, within just 6 hours.
Successfully solving each challenge, teams not only scored points but also admired the beauty of the country and the people of Vietnam. This difference of WhiteHat Grand Prix – Global challenge 2015 was novel and attractive to players. On the online support channel of the Organizer, nick name sewilton shared: "I can't wait to see if Viet Nam is as beautiful as it was in these pictures :)". Meanwhile, nick name Crowell stated: "thanks for teaching us about Viet Nam WhiteHatVN".
25 minutes before the Qualification Round ended, Shellphish submitted continuously the answer for the challenge My Son – Re250 and the speciall challenge Viet Nam. This was the first team to successfully solved the special challenge.
02:00 October 25 (UTC), the Qualification Round of WhiteHat Grand Prix – Global challenge 2015 officially finished after 24 hours of fascinating competition of 467 teams from 67 countries. PPP from the United States proved its 1st position on CTFTime by maintaining the leading place mostly during the competition and became the champion of the Qualification Round.
10 minutes left, PPP and Samurai continuously submitted the answer for the special challenge. With more 10% of their existing score, the Scoreboard saw a big change.
Da Nang – Crypto100 was the only challenge unsolved when the Qualification Round finished.
Here were Top 15 on the Scoreboard of the Qualification Round of WhiteHat Grand Prix 2015:
Avenger from Vietnam seemed to make its way to the Final Round for being the 6th on the Scoreboard. However, according to the Rules of the competition, which is each country is allowed to have a maximum of 2 teams to the Final Round, Avenger had to stop here and gave the ticket to the 11th team, Snatch The Root from Poland.
So, 10 teams to the Final Round of WhiteHat Grand Prix 2015 are PPP; Shellphish (United States); RoadToRome; BabyPhD (Vietnam); Samurai (Canada); 217 (Taiwan); Dragon Sector (Poland); More Smoked Leet Chicken (Russia); dcua (Ukraine); Snatch The Root (Poland).
On 19 December, these 10 teams will compete in the Final Round in 8 hours continuously, in the format of Attack/Defense, onsite in Hanoi.
Bkav