All In for AI Cyber Challenge Finals in Las Vegas

On Friday, a group of Georgia Tech alumni, students, and faculty will join fellow finalists in the Las Vegas Convention Center as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announces the winners of the two-year AI Cyber Challenge (AIxCC).

Under the banner of Team Atlanta, this group also represents Samsung Research, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), and Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH). Yet, every member has a connection to Georgia Tech. 

“Everyone is originally from Georgia Tech in one way or another,” said Taesoo Kim, professor in the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy and a vice president of Samsung Research, on the CTF Radiooo Podcast. 

“Many of the team members are leaders in their organization.”

Kim helped organize Team Atlanta, which includes current and past Ph.D. students from his lab.

The team, along with others participating in the AIxCC, developed a cyber-reasoning system (CRS) named Atlantis that automatically identifies and fixes common software vulnerabilities in a fraction of the time required by traditional methods. For the final competition, DARPA is testing each team’s CRS with three challenges: finding vulnerabilities, evaluating bug reports, and creating software patches. 

Unlike the semi-finals, DARPA will count any zero-day vulnerabilities discovered by the teams toward the final score. Zero-day vulnerabilities get their name from the amount of time vendors have to fix the vulnerability- zero- and last year Team Atlanta discovered one in the competition itself. The feat did not win them extra points in the semi-finals but was publicly recognized at the 2024 awards ceremony.

The Pentagon-backed initiative was announced in August 2023 and will award up to $20 million in prize money throughout the competition. Team Atlanta was among the seven teams that advanced from the semi-final competition last year and received $2 million. 

This year, the winning team will walk away with $4 million. DARPA leadership will announce the competition winners on the DEF CON Main Stage on Aug. 8 at 11 a.m. PT and livestream on DEF CON’s YouTube channel. The first-place team will receive $4 million, the second-place team will receive $3 million, and the third-place team will receive $1.5 million.

Afterwards Team Atlanta will join it’s the finalists in a series of talks at the AIxCC venue, DefCon33. All cyber reasoning systems used in the competition will immediately become open-source software, and a new era of cybersecurity software will begin.