September 10, 2025
Held for the first time on August 30–31, 2025, the online international cybersecurity competition Kaspersky {CTF} has determined five winning cybersecurity teams from around the world. Ganesh from the University of São Paulo, Brazil; Pinely, the Netherlands; SolidAll from Solid Group, Russia; PwnSec, the UAE; and Odin from ENKI WhiteHat, South Korea became the leaders of the jeopardy-style contest in their regional stages and are now going to test their skills at a new level at SAS CTF 2025 on-site finals.
Supported by Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT) and Kaspersky Academy, the new CTF competition attracted a total of 1600 expert teams from the academic and corporate worlds. With 90 participating countries overall, India, Russia and Brazil became TOP3 in terms of the number of registrations.
As part of the 24-hour contest, 1110 academic and 490 corporate teams from around the globe tackled a series of advanced tasks across reverse engineering, cryptography, binary exploitation, web security and forensics. Designed by Kaspersky’s experts, the challenges reflected real-world threat scenarios and demanded both technical precision and creative problem-solving. The teams have shown high preparedness for the competition: all of the 25 tasks in total were solved successfully with the most sophisticated challenges tackled at least two-five times. The AI-topic turned out to be the most attractive for participants, though one of this category’s tasks was solved by only five teams. The team to capture most of the flags, 24 out of 25, was Odin from ENKI WhiteHat, South Korea.
The top five teams are now set to compete for an $18,000 prize pool with eight winning teams from the SAS CTF 2025 qualifiers at the final stage at Security Analyst Summit in Khao Lak, Thailand, from October 25-28.
Commenting on the contest, Adham Elmosalamy, the captain of PwnSec (the winners from the Middle East, Turkiye and Africa region), noted: “Our team is very active in the CTF community, and I must say that Kaspersky {CTF} was one-of-a-kind. It was truly unique with very high-quality challenges that challenged us to the limits. The CTF was super well organized with stable infra and dedicated admins that made sure everything ran flawlessly. We are excited to meet the rest of our team on-site to compete at Khao Lak, Thailand, this October!”
“The new competition was a reminder of how much talent is out there,” said Leonid Bezvershenko, Senior Security Researcher at Kaspersky’s GReAT. “The active interest in this contest from both academic and business communities indicates that cybersecurity culture is on the rise and is actively developing globally. During the competition, we saw fresh thinking, bold strategies and a real passion for solving tough problems. That’s exactly what the cybersecurity world needs to stay ahead of the constantly evolving threats.”
“Held for the first time, Kaspersky {CTF} became a thrilling showcase of global cybersecurity talent with students and young professionals taking center stage. Reflecting Kaspersky’s commitment to fostering the community through hands-on education, these new competitions offered an effective platform for fresh minds to test their skills, learn from real-world challenges and connect with industry experts. The strong interest from both academia and industry showed just how important it is to support and invest into such events,” said Evgeniya Russkikh, Head of Academic Affairs at Kaspersky.
The final round at SAS CTF 2025 will be held in an even more dynamic Attack-Defense format and feature new challenges inspired by emerging threat vectors. The participants will not only compete for the prize, but will also take the opportunity to meet an international community of industry-leading security experts, share knowledge and explore current trends and the market.
About Kaspersky
Kaspersky is a global cybersecurity and digital privacy company founded in 1997. With over a billion devices protected to date from emerging cyberthreats and targeted attacks, Kaspersky’s deep threat intelligence and security expertise is constantly transforming into innovative solutions and services to protect individuals, businesses, critical infrastructure, and governments around the globe. The company’s comprehensive security portfolio includes leading digital life protection for personal devices, specialized security products and services for companies, as well as Cyber Immune solutions to fight sophisticated and evolving digital threats. We help millions of individuals and nearly 200,000 corporate clients protect what matters most to them. Learn more at www.kaspersky.com
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