In the context of increasing cyberattacks and the growing demand for highly skilled professionals, CyberFest 2025 officially kicked off on November 22 at DTU. The event, co-organized by the DevSecOps Community, DevPlus, TouchCyber, and DTU, brought together hundreds of students, professionals, and businesses in the fields of Cybersecurity & DevSecOps. This is the largest real-world event for students in Central Vietnam in 2025.
Dr. Nguyen Duc Man, Vice Rector of the DTU International School
The highlight of CyberFest 2025 was the 24-hour Hackathon (from November 22–23), featuring 12 strong teams from prestigious universities: University of Science and Technology - University of Danang - Vietnam-Korea University of Information and Communication, University of Danang, FPT University Danang, and DTU.
The main highlight of this year's Hackathon was the Red Team - Blue Team competition model, a direct 5v5 battle on a real system, much more complex than the traditional Capture The Flag (CTF) model. Teams were required to both attack and defend, while analyzing and responding to threats on the same infrastructure, reflecting the real-world cybersecurity environment in modern enterprises. This special format not only tested technical skills but also assessed strategic collaboration, decision-making under pressure, incident handling, and the operational thinking of a real SOC (Security Operations Center) Analyst.
The Organization Awards the Championship to Team N0_ch4tgpt_b1g_pr0bl3m from DTU
Results:
- Champion: Team N0_ch4tgpt_b1g_pr0bl3m – DTU
- Second Prize: Team N3m3s1s - University of Science and Technology, University of Danang,
- Third Prize: Team VSL.T1 - Vietnam-Korea University of Information and Communication, University of Danang
Additional awards:
- Impressive Award (Most Impressive Team): Team N3m3s1s - University of Science and Technology, University of Danang
- Warrior Spirit Award: Team ISITDTU_Ph?ch - DTU
- Biggest Boom Hackathon Award (Most Explosive Team): Team Rober - FPT University Danang
The Hackathon CyberFest 2025 competition was eagerly awaited by students, who put in great effort.
The competition provided a large-scale real-world platform for students to participate in
Huynh Chi Trung, a student from Team N0_ch4tgpt_b1g_pr0bl3m - DTU (Champions), shared: "The 24-hour real-world battle was extremely intense, but thanks to the collaboration between the Red Team and Blue Team, we were able to manage the situation effectively. Competing on a real system allowed us to better understand how enterprises operate and defend. This is a great opportunity because students rarely get the chance to participate in large-scale real-world competitions like this."
Mr. Nguyen Dinh Trong, DevSecOps expert and Director of TouchCyber, commented: "The Hackathon CyberFest 2025 is not just a competition; it’s also the most effective model for training talent today. Students learn skills, mindset, and professionalism by directly protecting a real system. The competition also provides valuable data for businesses, almost like a large-scale pentest with hundreds of different attack perspectives. This rare two-way model allows both students and businesses to learn and grow together."
From an academic perspective, Dr. Nguyen Duc Man, Vice Dean of the DTU International School, emphasized: “CyberFest 2025 is a testament to the collaboration between universities, businesses, and the professional community. No single entity can create a generation of skilled security engineers on its own. When all three parties connect, we can build a workforce strong enough to face the increasingly complex challenges of cybersecurity.”
In addition to the Hackathon competition, CyberFest 2025 featured deep academic content through Keynote sessions and Panel Discussions, helping students understand AI-driven attack trends, the requirements of businesses, and critical skills that traditional textbooks cannot teach, such as log reading, tracing, incident analysis, and handling under real-time pressure.
DTU views the victory of the team as just the beginning. More importantly, hundreds of students gained real-world experience, truly understanding the nature of the profession and preparing to become "defenders of the digital space."
DTU plans to develop more real-world training programs at various levels: building a real SOC lab for students, expanding the Red – Blue Team model into specialized courses, enhancing collaboration with businesses to implement the DevSecOps pipeline, and organizing annual real-world competitions to help students continuously improve. The university aims to train students to become information security experts even while they are still in school.
(Media Center)