• Carnegie Mellon University's PPP Wins Third Consecutive DEF CON CTF Title: Carnegie Mellon University's Plaid Parliament of Pwning (PPP) won its third consecutive Capture-the-Flag (CTF) title at DEF CON. It earned its eighth victory in the past 12 years. PPP joined forces with Robert Xiao's team Maple Bacon and The Duck from Theori.io, playing as Maple Mallard Magistrates (MMM).
• DEF CON CTF Competition Details: DEF CON's three-day flagship competition is considered the "Olympics" of hacking. 12 of the world's top teams (qualified from 1742 teams) competed to break each other's systems, steal virtual flags and accumulate points while protecting their own.
• Significance of the Competition: With the increasing number of cybersecurity attacks worldwide, competitions like DEF CON's CTF provide an opportunity for leading cybersecurity engineers to measure up and develop new techniques.
• PPP's Competition Journey: Carnegie Mellon students, faculty and alumni faced early adversity, finishing third on day one and second on day two. They pulled away in the final hours to secure the victory and earned eight black badges. PPP was first formed in 2009 and started competing in 2010, with previous wins in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2022 and 2023, and second-place finishes in 2015, 2018, 2020 and 2021. It also won the third straight title at the MITRE embedded CTF (eCTF).
• Team's Secret to Success: Former PPP captain Jay Bosamiya said the team's hard work pays off and the secret to effective communication is that they are a group of friends who love to hang out together even outside of CTFs. Members of PPP contribute as problem writers to Carnegie Mellon University's picoCTF, developing challenges of different complexities. picoCTF is a popular CTF for middle and high school students to build and hone their cybersecurity skills and has expanded to include undergraduate and country/continent-specific leaderboards.