The open championship of Samara University—SamaraCTF 2026—has drawn to a close, bringing together 56 teams from various regions of Russia and Uzbekistan in a high-stakes Jeopardy-style CTF competition. Organized by the Institute of IT and Cybernetics and the Department of Geoinformatics and Information Security, the event was supported by prize sponsors JSC "Kaspersky Lab" and JSC "SAMIS".
48 Hours, 23 Challenges, 8 Categories
Over two intense days, participants tackled 23 tasks of varying difficulty across eight core cybersecurity domains:
- Steganography
- Digital Forensics
- Web Security
- Cryptography
- Reverse Engineering
- Pwn (Binary Exploitation)
- OSINT (Open-Source Intelligence)
- And more
The marathon format tested not only technical expertise but also teamwork, strategic thinking, and endurance under pressure.
Final Standings: Top Three Teams
Based on cumulative scores, the podium was awarded as follows:
1st Place: bb0tz – Volga State University of Telecommunications and Informatics
2nd Place: ch1LL_R3L4x_grep – Saint Petersburg State University of Economics
3rd Place: fTerryDavis – Omsk State Technical University
Samara University Teams Shine
Four teams represented Samara University, delivering strong performances across the board. Internal rankings among university squads were as follows:
1st Place: inchange.dev
(Specialty: Information Security of Automated Systems)
Team members:
- Nikita Agapov
- Viktor Shekhmatov
- Maria Zhukova
- Rodion Klevlin
- Daria Lomovskaya
- Viktoria Reshetnikova
- Kirill Khramov
2nd Place: Shabbat_Plug
(Specialty: Computer Security)
Team members:
- Artem Falkovich
- Sergey Kalmykov
- Vladimir Matveev
3rd Place: sudo win
(Track: Information Security)
Team members:
- Kirill Skuratov
- Denis Farkhutdinov
- Ilya Lapinsky
- Konstantin Zagaryuk
- Ilya Filippov
Behind the Scenes: Organizers and Task Designers
The championship's lead organizer was Alexander Verichev, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Geoinformatics and Information Security. Task development was entrusted to a talented student team: Ivan Dudnik and Vyacheslav Trifonov (Samara University), alongside Danis Ivanichenko (Volga State University of Telecommunications and Informatics).
Explore the Results
Full competition results, along with all challenge descriptions and solutions, are available at the official link.
Congratulations!
Heartfelt congratulations to all winners and prize recipients for their outstanding achievements—and to every participant for gaining invaluable experience in one of cybersecurity's most dynamic competitive formats.
In a world where digital threats evolve daily, events like SamaraCTF don't just identify talent—they help build the next generation of defenders.
Text: Veronika Budyuk, Group 6413-100503D
