IIT Bombay’s Trust Lab wraps up National Cybersecurity showdown—Winners revealed

The event brought together some of India’s most promising young cybersecurity minds for a full-day challenge designed to mirror real-world digital threat scenarios.

A Capture The Flag (CTF) is a cybersecurity competition where participants solve challenges to find “flags,” special strings serving as proof-of-hack. It tests skills across cryptography, reverse engineering, web security, forensics, and networking. Players analyse vulnerable programs or services, identify weaknesses, and submit the flags for points.

In the IITB Trust Lab CTF, challenges covered Cryptography, Web Exploitation, Reverse Engineering, and Miscellaneous categories.

This initiative by IIT Bombay’s Trust Lab comes at a time when the demand for cybersecurity talent in India is rising sharply, even as nearly 50% of cybersecurity jobs reportedly remain unfilled—reflecting an urgent need to strengthen the country’s talent pipeline.

The competition drew 480 teams from top engineering institutes, cybersecurity clubs, and technology universities across India. Participants competed individually or in teams of two. From this pool, the top 50 finalists were shortlisted for the on-campus finale, where they undertook a series of escalating technical challenges developed by cybersecurity researchers from Trust Lab.

Shireesh Kedare, Director of IIT Bombay, said, “CTF competitions are globally accepted as one of the most effective ways to build hands-on cybersecurity capability. Participants are required to solve challenges across domains such as reverse engineering, cryptography, application security, digital forensics and system exploitation—the skills crucial for combating online scams, financial fraud, phishing, ransomware, and emerging digital risks targeting individuals and institutions,” adding, “With India’s digital footprint expanding rapidly—from UPI and fintech to smart infrastructure and AI-powered services—the demand for skilled cybersecurity professionals has never been higher. IIT Bombay’s Trust Lab aims to nurture this talent through competitions, workshops, research collaborations, and real-world testing platforms.”

At the conclusion of the competition, the first place was secured by Team ‘Gingers’, followed by Team ‘Chatpata Vada Paav’ in the second place and Team ‘Daalbaatichurma’ in the third place, with all three teams representing IIT Roorkee. The fourth place was awarded to Team ‘fl4g0rD13’ from IIT Madras, while the fifth place went to Team ‘Deathwing’ from Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune.

In addition, Shriyansh Gupta from Team ‘JEE is Tuff’ received a special mention for his exceptional performance. Notably, Shriyansh is an 11th standard student from Kendriya Vidyalaya Delhi, who competed alongside undergraduate students from some of India’s leading technical institutions.

G. Sivakumar, Principal Investigator of IIT Bombay’s Trust Lab, said, “Competitions like this are crucial for closing the gap between academic learning and the rapidly evolving threats confronted by industry. They force participants to think like real adversaries, apply core technical principles under pressure, and build the instincts that modern cybersecurity demands. The CTF finale also immersed students in IIT Bombay’s advanced cybersecurity research ecosystem—offering direct interactions with faculty, exposure to cutting-edge defence frameworks, and insights into the latest global attack techniques.”

Mukul Joshi, Program Director of IIT Bombay’s Trust Lab, said, “While Trust Lab has been fostering a community and culture of cybersecurity among students through CTFs, we are also witnessing growing interest from industry to conduct similar challenges for their employees. IIT Bombay’s Trust Lab has successfully collaborated with industry partners in the past and will continue to leverage this platform to enhance the skills of working professionals as well.”

Trust Lab has been a trailblazer in shaping India’s CTF culture. At a time when cybersecurity competitions were still emerging in the country, Trust Lab launched one of India’s earliest large-scale national CTFs, attracting exceptional talent from premier institutes. As one of the first institutions to actively sponsor and champion CTF initiatives, Trust Lab has played a pivotal role in nurturing the next generation of cybersecurity professionals and catalysing a competitive ecosystem that continues to strengthen year after year.