Every year, more than 100,000 seasoned cybersecurity pros compete in global hacking competitions, designed to show off their abilities at picking apart security systems to pilfer data. The games task hackers with challenges that escalate in difficulty, from bypassing logins to more complex cyberattacks requiring exploitation of hidden software weaknesses. Ultimately, they aim to break through all the security layers protecting a digital “flag,” just like real life capture the flag. Now, Israeli startup Tenzai says that earlier this month its AI hacker performed better than 99% of the 125,000 human competitors who faced off in a series of six so-called capture the flag (CTF) competitions, which regularly update with new sets of tricky challenges.
