Cracking the Code: SRM University Tops UST’s GenCyS 2025 Cybersecurity Challenge

Over 1,000 students and professionals registered; winning team secures ₹1.5 lakh prize and conditional job offer at UST.

In a high-stakes display of next-gen talent, UST concluded the 2025 edition of its national cybersecurity challenge, GenCyS (Generation Cyberstars), with SRM Institute of Science and Technology emerging as the winning team. The Capture the Flag (CTF) finale was held at UST’s campus in Thiruvananthapuram, bringing together the top 50 shortlisted teams from an initial pool of over 1,000 student and early-career professionals across India.
The three-member team from SRM demonstrated exceptional skill in a competitive environment that tested participants across real-world domains such as cryptography, reverse engineering, web security, network analysis, and Internet of Things (IoT) vulnerabilities. Their victory earned them a ₹1.5 lakh cash prize and a conditional job offer from UST, reinforcing the event’s objective of identifying and nurturing India’s brightest cybersecurity minds.

Second and third places were secured by participants from Tata Consultancy Services and Poornima University, respectively.
Designed to align with National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, GenCyS 2025 was more than a contest, it was a platform for capability discovery, peer learning, and industry integration. UST’s Cyberproof team, a leading cybersecurity solutions provider and part of the UST ecosystem, was instrumental in designing the technical architecture and challenges for the event.

Speaking at the finale, Alexander Varghese, Chief Operating Officer, UST, said:
“In an age of rapidly evolving digital threats, investing in cybersecurity talent is no longer optional, it’s foundational. GenCyS is our commitment to developing a resilient, future-ready cyber workforce.”

The GenCyS initiative, now in its third edition, continues to expand its scope by incorporating newer threat vectors and technologies. It also reflects UST’s broader talent development strategy, which merges academic outreach with on-ground challenges to build workforce-readiness in AI, cybersecurity, and digital engineering.
With GenCyS 2025 concluded, UST reaffirms its role as both a talent enabler and innovation leader within India’s evolving tech ecosystem.

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