The winningest team in DEF CON’s Capture-the-Flag (CTF) competition history, Carnegie Mellon University’s Plaid Parliament of Pwning (PPP), won its fourth consecutive title, earning its ninth victory in the past 13 years.

PPP joined forces with CMU alumnus and University of British Columbia Professor Robert Xiao's team, Maple Bacon, and hackers from CMU Alum startup Theori.io (The Duck), playing under the name Maple Mallard Magistrates (MMM).

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 more than 2,300 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.

Carnegie Mellon students, faculty, and alumni took an early lead in the competition but faced some adversity during the LiveCTF portion of the event, which narrowed the gap in the race to the top of the leaderboard heading into Sunday. The team ultimately rebounded to pull away from its closest challengers in the competition's final hours and secure the victory. For the win, MMM earned eight black badges, the most elite recognition in hacking.

“DEF CON CTF involves a lot of teamwork and communication,” said Erye Hernandez, PPP team member and alumna of Carnegie Mellon’s Information Networking Institute (INI). “Many of our veteran players have known each other for a long time, and it’s great having that camaraderie, trust, and ability to depend on each other when it comes to this type of competition.”

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, 2023, and 2024, 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 fourth straight title at the MITRE embedded Capture-the-Flag event (eCTF).

“This was not my first attack/defense CTF, but coming into the DEF CON CTF Finals for the first time was an entirely different world for me,” said Rohil Chaudhry (MS’25), a recent INI graduate. “The stakes are high, and I had a lot of fun experiencing the sheer pace with which the competitors work and learning new and interesting things from everyone on the team.”

Members of PPP contribute as problem writers to Carnegie Mellon University’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, Carnegie Mellon University continues to lead the way in cybersecurity education and research.

About the College of Engineering:

The College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University is a top-ranked engineering college known for its Advanced Collaboration culture in research and education. The College is well-known for working on problems of both scientific and practical importance. Our “maker” culture is ingrained in all that we do, leading to novel approaches and transformative results. Our acclaimed faculty have a focus on innovation management and engineering to yield transformative results that will drive the intellectual and economic vitality of our community, nation, and world.

About Carnegie Mellon University: Carnegie Mellon, cmu.edu, is a private, internationally ranked research university with acclaimed programs spanning the sciences, engineering, technology, business, public policy, humanities, and the arts. Our diverse community of scholars, researchers, creators, and innovators is driven to make real-world impacts that benefit people across the globe. With a bold, interdisciplinary, and entrepreneurial approach, we do the work that matters.

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Carnegie Mellon’s hacking team wins fourth straight, record ninth overall DEF CON Capture-the-Flag title