2025 Cybersecurity Contest for Students officially launched

The contest is held under the auspices of the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Education and Training.

The contest, which is held in Hanoi, has two main rounds — the Preliminary Round on October 18 and the Final Round on November 15. All students from universities and colleges nationwide as well as those studying at several international institutions are eligible for the contest. 

The contest provides opportunity for participating students to learn the current cybersecurity situation in the country and the world, deal with real cybersecurity cases, via which they can enhance their technical proficiency, develop analytical and problem-solving skills and foster creativity and innovation.

The Jury Council of the contest includes experts from leading technology enterprises such as Viettel, VNPT, FPT, CMC, NCS, Vietsunshine, CyRadar, Misoft, Misa, Mi2 and Bkav, along with independent specialists. These experts had earlier reached high consensus on the content of the competition.

The Preliminary Round, scheduled for October 18, 2025, will be conducted online in the Jeopardy CTF format, covering multiple advanced cybersecurity tasks related to Pwnable (software exploitation, buffer overflow and shellcode), Reverse Engineering (source code decompilation and packer/crypter analysis), Web Security (detection and exploitation of web application vulnerabilities) and Cryptography/Algorithmic Challenges (decoding algorithms and applying programming and algorithmic skills to solve complex problems). 

This round aims to comprehensively assess contestants’ basic cybersecurity knowledge, specialized technical skills and adaptability in real-world cybersecurity contexts.

The Final Round, to be held on November 15, 2025, at the Department of Cybersecurity and Hi-tech Crimes under the Ministry of Public Security, will bring the outstanding teams selected from the preliminary round, which will compete in two categories. 

Group A will consist of 20 teams with the highest scores in the preliminary round (one team per university). They will act as an attacker and defender for a mock data center.

Meanwhile, Group B will be the teams that are not qualified for Group A. They will compete in a Jeopardy-style format focused on topics such as Web, Pwnable, Reverse, Crypto, Forensics, IoT, Blockchain and AI.

The contest has a total prize pool of VND 250 million in cash, along with scholarships, technology products and services and career advice given by leading cybersecurity and digital technology experts. 

Based on the results of Vietnamese university teams at the contest, the NCA will nominate a national team to participate in regional and international competitions, such as Cyber SEA Game and ASEAN Cyber Shield.