The Defcon hacker conference in August 2008 unveiled a controversial contest at the time that has raised concerns within the cybersecurity industry. 

The "Race-to-Zero" contest challenges hackers to outwit antivirus software by modifying sample virus code. 

While the contest organizers aim to shed light on antivirus limitations, critics argued back then that this initiative could inadvertently arm malicious actors with new techniques.

A Controversial Contest 

As this ABCNews report writes, the Race-to-Zero contest tasked Defcon hackers with creatively altering sample virus code to bypass antivirus software. 

Awards are designated for categories such as "Most elegant obfuscation," "Dirtiest hack of an obfuscation," "Comedy value," and "Most deserving beer." Contest organizers are trying to emphasize that antivirus alone cannot guarantee complete defense against malware.

Mixed Industry Reaction

Some experts, such as Paul Ferguson from TrendMicro, argued that encouraging hackers to find new ways to evade antivirus protection could do more harm than good. 

Critics drew parallels to a 2006 Consumer Reports review that generated thousands of new virus samples, contributing to the ever-expanding list of known malware. 

With security vendors already grappling with a deluge of new threats, opinions on the contest's value diverge.

Although not organized by Defcon itself, the Race-to-Zero contest is an unofficial event endorsed by the conference's organizers. The contest aimed to demonstrate the effort required to evade antivirus solutions and is expected to present results during the Defcon event.

Defcon 2023's "Generative Red Team Challenge"

Shifting to the present year, Defcon continues to capture attention with its unique cybersecurity events. 

This year's "Generative Red Team Challenge" in the AI Village has garnered significant anticipation and support from major AI developers like Anthropic, Google, Hugging Face, Microsoft, NVIDIA, OpenAI, and Stability AI. 

With backing from the White House and the industry, this challenge focuses on testing the security of large language models.

The AI Village's challenge represents a significant milestone in assessing the security of generative AI models. 

Axios reports that roughly 3,500 participants are expected to take part, each allotted 50 minutes on one of the 156 closed-network computer terminals. The competition encompasses five challenge categories: prompt hacking, security, information integrity, internal consistency, and societal harms.

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Unlike traditional adversarial attacks, the Generative Red Team Challenge emphasizes identifying "embedded harms" within AI models. This approach highlights inherent model flaws rather than forcing models into malicious actions. The diverse group of participants, not solely experts in AI, adds to the challenge's uniqueness.

As the excitement surrounding the AI Village and the red team challenge grows, organizers remain cautious about releasing results immediately to prevent exposing private data or vulnerabilities. However, approved researchers are expected to gain access to the results once security measures are in place.

The challenge organizers intend to keep the weekend's results private to avoid releasing private data or unpatched vulnerabilities into the wild.

Stay posted here at Tech Times.

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