Competitors Challenged to Hack ATM, 3D Printers at 15th Annual CSAW Conference

… This year, participants breached design files to 3D print counterfeit parts, and a team of five hacked an ATM, leaving with $2,000 in cash. But these cyber whizzes are not wanted criminals—they were competitors in the 15th Annual Cyber Security Awareness Week, or CSAW, conference hosted by the New York University Center for Cybersecurity at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering. “Once you think like hackers, it becomes better for you to come up with better defenses,” explained Ramesh Karri, NYU professor of electrical and computer engineering, and founder of CSAW’s Embedded Security Challenge. Over the decade-and-a-half that CSAW has challenged participants to “think like hackers,” it has grown from a humble “capture the flag” hacker competition to an international event hosted in six countries, with a wide variety of cyber-related competitions and over 20,000 participants worldwide, according to event founder, professor of computer science and engineering Nasir Memon.