VicOne/Block Harbor Global Vehicle Cybersecurity Competition Recognizes Top Performers Across Four Categories

DETROIT, Sept. 11, 2025—VicOne, an automotive cybersecurity solutions leader, and Block Harbor, a trusted automotive cybersecurity engineering company, today announced the winners of the Global Vehicle Cybersecurity Competition (VCC). Nearly 500 individuals of all skill levels, from first-time players to seasoned professionals pursuing careers in automotive cybersecurity, competed in the “Capture the Flag”-style event to learn, upskill, and contribute to building a safer future for connected vehicles and software-defined vehicles (SDVs). Top performers were recognized in four award categories

Overall competition—Willem Melching 

Blue Team—Zsolt Dénes 

Red Team—Chanhyeok Jung 

Individual challenges—DK Kong, et, kakur41, Kazuki Furukawa, Robert Beltri, and Song Gyeongsik. 

“The automotive industry finds itself facing a dual-track cybersecurity risk, in that it must simultaneously maintain the existing vehicles and defend the new SDVs, and this comes at a time when a clear shortage of trained cybersecurity workforce is crystallizing around the world,” said Max Cheng, Chief Executive Officer of VicOne.
"As a leader of the global cybersecurity community, we feel a responsibility to help build the future generation of automotive defenders. We worked with Block Harbor to design Global VCC with highly realistic hacking challenges, to help defenders experience firsthand future attack scenarios, while sharpening the essential skills that every next-gen defender will need moving forward.” 

Global VCC, powered by VicOne and Block Harbor, took place online from August 22 to September 1. Participants competed head-to-head in Blue Team defense and Red Team offense scenarios: 

• Cracking legacy defenses
• Defending against malicious firmware overwrites 
• Unlocking lateral movement from one electronic control unit to the entire vehicle 
• Protecting signatures and keys for last-line of defense 
• Detecting anomalous controller area network (CAN) messages 
• Decrypting encrypted CAN communications 
• Understanding attacker language through reverse engineering 
• Using Threat Analysis and Risk Assessment (TARA) tools and threat modeling

VicOne and Block Harbor designed the Global VCC scenarios to mimic real-world attacks and countermeasures on modern connected vehicles and SDVs to help the competitors practice relevant skills and learn alongside a community of security enthusiasts, students, and professionals. 

Participants in Global VCC earned Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credits and competed for cash and titles. As the overall competition winner, Willem Melching will be flown to attend Pwn2Own Automotive 2026, the world’s largest zero-day vulnerability discovery contest focused on connected cars and SDVs. Pwn2Own Automotive is scheduled for Jan. 21-23, 2026, at Automotive World in Tokyo.

“This was an engaging CTF that brought together reverse engineering, cryptography and exploitation skills,” said Willem Melching, the 2025 Global VCC overall competition winner.
“The challenges were thoughtfully designed with just the right level of difficulty. The simulated PowerPC ECU (electronic control unit) was impressively realistic, reflecting vulnerabilities that can be found in real-world ECUs.” 

“I'm genuinely surprised by the news, and I'm also really delighted and grateful to have had the opportunity to compete and learn alongside such a large and impressive field of automotive defenders. It really felt like being on a roller coaster—from the lowest lows when I was completely stuck, to the highest highs after finally finding a flag. It was an intense and truly memorable experience!”

– Zsolt Dénes, Global VCC Blue Team winner

“Participating in the 2025 Vehicle Cybersecurity Competition has been a valuable and inspiring experience that shows how important these skills are for the future of mobility. I look forward to joining again next year and continuing to take on new challenges in the field of automotive cybersecurity.”

– Chanhyeok Jung, Global VCC Red Team winner

“Thank you for hosting the competition. The event offered a valuable hands-on experience in tackling real-world automotive cybersecurity challenges, and I look forward to future contests.”

– kakur41, Global VCC Individual Challenges winner

"Participating in the Vehicle Cybersecurity Competition was both a challenging and rewarding experience. Winning the AutoGraph challenge is a great honor, and I am inspired by how initiatives like this encourage new ways of thinking and spark innovation in automotive cybersecurity."

– Robert Beltri, Global VCC Individual Challenges winner

For deeper insights into the rationale behind these challenges, please refer to our blog.

About VicOne 

With a vision to secure the vehicles of tomorrow, VicOne delivers a broad portfolio of cybersecurity software and services for the automotive industry. Purpose-built to address the rigorous needs of automotive manufacturers and suppliers, VicOne solutions are designed to secure and scale with the specialized demands of the modern vehicle. As a Trend Micro subsidiary, VicOne is powered by a solid foundation in cybersecurity drawn from Trend Micro's 30+ years in the industry, delivering unparalleled automotive protection and deep security insights that enable our customers to build secure as well as smart vehicles. For more information, visit vicone.com. 

About Block Harbor

Block Harbor was established in 2014 in direct response to the Jeep Hack – the moment the industry took notice to the risk of cyberattacks to vehicles. In launching with several of the Automakers, Suppliers, and Auditors that were quick to act in vehicle cybersecurity, Block Harbor has always operated at the forefront, solving new challenges and building new solutions alongside our customers. Block Harbor’s platform, the Vehicle Security Engineering Cloud (VSEC), combined with Block Harbor’s services from our Vehicle Security Operations team and our Vehicle Cybersecurity Labs team leads the industry with solutions that are tailor fit for the mobility ecosystem. Learn more at blockharbor.io.