INI Students and Alumni Propel Carnegie Mellon’s Hacking Team to Third Consecutive DEF CON Capture-the-Flag Title

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)’s Plaid Parliament of Pwning (PPP) continues its winning at DEF CON’s Capture-the-Flag (CTF) streak with a third consecutive title and eighth victory in the past 12 years. Information Networking Institute (INI) students and alumni have been a consistent part of the PPP for years, contributing to the team’s remarkable success. This year they joined the combined team, Maple Mallard Magistrates (MMM), which included CMU alumni and the University of British Columbia’s team, Maple Bacon. 

DEF CON’s three-day flagship competition, widely considered the “Olympics” of hacking, brought together some of the world’s most talented cybersecurity professionals, researchers, and students, as 12 of the world’s top teams (who qualified from a field of 1,742 teams) attempted to break each other’s systems, stealing virtual flags and accumulating points while simultaneously protecting their own systems. 

As the number of cybersecurity attacks continues to increase worldwide, competitions like DEF CON’s Capture-the-Flag provide the opportunity for leading cybersecurity engineers to measure up against one another, learning and developing new techniques as they work through various challenges. 

INI and CMU students, faculty and alumni overcame some early adversity in the competition, finishing in third place on the leaderboard at the end of day one and moving up to second place on day two before pulling away from its closest challengers in the competition's final hours to secure the victory. For the win, the team earned eight black badges, the most elite recognition in hacking. 

“The entire experience was impressive to see,” said INI Masters of Science in Information Security (MSIS) student Rohan Viswanathan. “This was the third year in a row MMM has won DEF CON CTF and everyone was thrilled about being a part of it. Seeing the team work through adversity together showed just how we were able to win and be successful for so long.” 

PPP was first formed in 2009 and began competing at DEF CON in 2010. The team’s previous wins came in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2022, and 2023, with second-place finishes in 2015, 2018, 2020, and 2021. The team runs and competes in several cybersecurity competitions each year and recently won its third straight title at the MITRE embedded Capture-the-Flag event (eCTF). 

“Our team’s hard work really pays off,” said Jay Bosamiya, former PPP captain and Ph.D. alumnus of Carnegie Mellon’s Computer Science Department. “Our secret to effective communication within the team is that we are a group of friends who love to hang out with each other, even outside of CTFs.” 

Members of PPP contribute as problem writers to CMU’s annual student-focused hacking competition, picoCTF, developing challenges of varying levels of complexity. picoCTF has long been the go-to CTF for middle and high school students looking to build and hone their cybersecurity skills, and in recent years has expanded to include an undergraduate leaderboard, as well as several country and continent-specific leaderboards. 

Home to the CyLab Security and Privacy Institute, U.S. News and World Report’s top-ranked undergraduate cybersecurity program and several world-class graduate programs and courses, CMU continues to lead the way in cybersecurity education and research.