BrainHack 2025 Grand Finale
A Grand Finale appearance at BrainHack 2025, tackling cryptography, reverse engineering, and web exploitation challenges.
BrainHack 2025 marked my return to hackathons after a three-year hiatus and brought together cybersecurity challenges with practical uses of artificial intelligence.
The challenge
Our team worked through capture-the-flag tasks involving cryptography, reverse engineering, and web exploitation. The event demanded both careful analysis and the ability to write or adapt tooling quickly.
AI in cybersecurity
Using language models during CTF work showed how quickly AI can assist with repetitive image processing, exploratory scripts, and unfamiliar technical contexts. It also reinforced the need to verify generated approaches rather than treating them as authoritative.
Reaching the Grand Finale reflected the team’s persistence, complementary skills, and problem-solving under pressure.