Zer0RocketWrecks has won LakeCTF, Switzerland's top Capture the Flag

The goal of Capture the Flags or CTFs is to reverse engineer, decrypt and hack into computer systems to capture flags and win points for your team. Prestigious events include the DEFCON CTF in Las Vegas (referencing the U.S. Armed Forces defense readiness condition), considered to be the hacker Olympics, and the China based OCTF, organized by Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University and the Chinese tech company, Tencent.

In its third edition, EPFL’s LakeCTF 2025 competition hosted ten teams from around the world: our team name was stolen, KebabEngineers, about:blankets, Zer0RocketWrecks, CyKor, flagbot, NUS Greyhats, .;,;., FluxFingers and bingus, hailing from as far as Malaysia and Singapore, North America and Europe.

Almost 100 participants spent a day attempting to find text strings, called ‘flags’, secretly hidden in purposefully vulnerable programs or websites. After eight solid hours of competition team Zer0RocketWrecks took home first prize.

“It feels great to win. The competition was great, and we enjoy the time collaborating on Capture the Flags, it’s really fun for us. We’re a collaborative team from all over Europe - Romania, Greece, Germany, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic – and we feel like as a team we continue to get stronger,” said Dragos Albastroiu, a member of the Zer0RocketWrecks from ETH Zurich.

EPFL’s Capture the Flag team, the polygl0ts are proud of how LakeCTF has grown and look forward to the event continuing to get bigger and better year on year.

“For the third time we have pulled off one of the most successful academic cyber security events of its kind. We spend quite a lot of time organizing everything so it’s nice to meet the players, see it come to fruition, see everyone solve the challenges that we made and have fun,” said Rokhaya-Diamil Fall, a Master student in the School of Computer and Communication Sciences (IC) and President of the polygl0ts.

A new competition element in 2025 was a partnership with the Bolo Museum in Lausanne where players had to complete a challenging using older, historical computers from their collection!

“A cool thing about onsite Capture the Flags is that we can do physical, real things in person. This year we wanted to do something retro, and we partnered with the Bolo Museum to use some of their vintage hardware for our challenges,” explained Florian Hofhammer, a long-standing team member of the polygl0ts.

LakeCTF has put EPFL on the global cyber security map in a short period of time and this year’s edition had some key sponsors: OtterSec, ChainSecurity, Infomaniak, Zellic, Orange Cyberdefense and Asymmetric Research that works on security for Blockchain.

“We’re so pleased to partner with LakeCTF because in security there’s a big talent gap. We are always looking for good people and we think this event is a great opportunity to meet the next generation of talent,” explained Felix Wilhelm, co-founder and CTO at Asymmetric Research. “I think traditionally Europe has been well represented in these types of cyber security competitions attracting people from all over the world. These in person events here are now especially important at a time when travelling to the US has become more difficult for people from certain countries,” he concluded.

Team Polygl0ts originated in Professor Mathias Payer’s HexHive Laboratory in 2018 as a way for students to playfully learn about all aspects of cyber security. The polygl0ts are a commission of la CLIC, and now count students from across the IC School that compete in CTFs around the world.

Companies interested in partnering with LakeCTF in 2026 can contact the IC Head of Communications, Deirdre Rochat: [email protected]