HACK@DAC 2023 consists of 2 phases, a Qualifying Round and a Live Round. The Qualifying Round was open to all participants and ended in mid-May. Top teams from the Qualifying Round were invited to participate in the Live Competition on July 9-10 at the Design Automation Conference (#DAC60) in San Francisco, CA. Teams had 48 hours to find and exploit as many security vulnerabilities in the “buggy SoC” provided by the competition organizers. Points were awarded to teams that correctly identified security vulnerabilities in the design. Bonus points were earned when teams demonstrated clever use of automation in vulnerability detection and/or exploitation. Teams with the highest scores win.

Not Your Typical Capture-the-Flag (CTF)

To deliver an immersive, hands-on pre-silicon hacking experience, we prepared a sophisticated “buggy SoC” that incorporated industry-scale security features along with common security vulnerabilities that were inspired by real-world product issues. In addition, we enabled each team with a set of powerful commercial-grade EDA tools in the cloud, while providing options for teams to deploy their own custom tools. Participants in all SoC hacking experience levels were covered.

Behind the Scenes

The HACK@DAC organizing team is made up of industry and academia experts. A big shout-out goes to the team for their flawless execution and outstanding collaboration, working tirelessly since the beginning of the year.

• Arun Kanuparthi and Hareesh Khattri from Intel Corporation
• Yann Antonioli, Jagminder Chugh and Shylaja Sen from Synopsys Inc
• Pouya Mahmoody, Mohamadreza Rostami, and Shaza Zeitouni from Technische Universität Darmstadt
• Rahul Kande and Venkatakrishnan Sutharsan from Texas A&M University

HACK@DAC 2023 Winners

1st: Team “Sycuricon”, Zhejiang University, China

• Advisor: Yajin Zhoud
• Members: Jinyan Xu, Yiyuan Liu, Xiaodi Zhao, Jiaxun Zhu

2nd: Team “Calgary ISH”, University of Calgary, Canada

• Advisor: Dr. Benjamin Tan
• Members: Joey Ah-kiow, Anudeep Dharavathu, Abdelrahman Elnaggar, Subroto Kumer Deb Nath

3rd: Team “Bitwise Bandits”, University of Florida, United States and Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India

• Advisor: Dr. Swarup Bhunia
• Members: Sudipta Paria, Aritra Dasgupta, Rajat Sadhukhan, Arnab Bag

3rd: Team “NYU_bounty_hunters”, UNSW, Australia and New York University, United States

• Advisor: Dr. Hammond Pearce 
• Members:Prithwish Basu Roy, Meet Udeshi, Jason Blocklove, Animesh Basak Chowdhury

Congratulations to the winners of the 6th HACK@DAC Hardware Security Capture-the-Flag (CTF) Competition!