HackTheon Sejong 2025: top 10 in Korea

In July 2025 our team PTIT.BlueCyber went to Sejong, South Korea for the HackTheon Sejong 2025 final. It’s an international student security competition hosted by the city of Sejong, with support from NIS, the Ministry of Science and ICT and KISA, and a prize pool of 38 million won. We finished 10th.

First, thanks to PTIT. The school paid for the whole trip and sent us there, and we wouldn’t have been able to go otherwise.

Table 33, just before the start.

The final was on July 10, from 10:00 to 18:00. In the morning things went well and at one point we were 4th. Then in the afternoon other teams kept solving and we slowly dropped down. Our last flag went in at 17:31:40, about half an hour before the end, and that got us to 3,764 points.

Final scoreboard. PTIT.BlueCyber is 10th with 3,764 points.

Only the top 7 got prizes. 7th place had 3,878 points, so we were just 114 points short of a prize, which is less than one challenge. Top 10 is still a good result, but being that close to a prize is what I remember most.

After the final, with the medals.

The awards ceremony was the next morning, on July 11. After that we had some time to look around, and we ended up in Seoul one night walking around the streets. Lots of neon signs, very nice place to just walk.

Seoul at night.

This was also one of the last contests for PTIT.BlueCyber as a team, so it meant a bit more than usual.

Every finalist got the same black case with the medal, stickers, a USB card, an NIS gift and the competition badge inside.

The finalist gift case.