M*CTF 2025: first place in Moscow

In December 2025 four of us from PTIT went to Moscow for M*CTF 2025, an international Attack-Defense CTF hosted by MTUCI (Moscow Technical University of Communications and Informatics). We won.

We landed in Moscow on December 7.

Arriving in Moscow, December 7, 2025.

The four of us at M*CTF 2025.

There were nine teams on the final board, from Russia, Vietnam and a few other countries. The game had 180 rounds and four services, pupocer, qrb, erpdotnet and arasaka. The rules were the usual A&D ones, where you steal flags from the other teams and keep your own services patched and running.

I’ve played A&D twice before at the ASEAN contest. In 2023 our services were up but we patched too slowly. In 2024 we attacked a lot but let our own services go down. So this time we tried to keep our services safe first.

Round 180/180. PTIT 1st with 19,477.14, MTUCI 2nd with 18,056.53, UTT 3rd with 17,741.54.

You can see it in our row. 100% SLA on pupocer and qrb, 85.56% on arasaka, and nobody got any flags from us on those three. erpdotnet was the only service where flags really moved, and there we went +20/-20 with 91.39% uptime.

Over 180 rounds, uptime counts for a lot, and that is where most of our points came from. After the two ASEAN finals, winning mainly through defense felt really good.

The 1st place award, M*CTF 2025.

With players from MTUCI after the final.

Outside the contest, Moscow in December was cold and snowy, which was an experience by itself for us. We went to Red Square and St. Basil’s Cathedral, and to Moscow State University.

Red Square and St. Basil’s.

Moscow State University.

MTUCI also has a drone arena, a big sports hall with nets everywhere, and we got to try the drones there. That was fun. It’s also where we took the photo with the diploma.

In the MTUCI drone arena.

Two years ago I was 15th in my first A&D final with a consolation prize. This time we came home with first place.