The Embedded Security Challenge (ESC) 2025 invites students worldwide to harness AI and machine learning in tackling hardware security threats—from side channel to fault injection attacks—in one of the most innovative global cybersecurity competitions.
UR: https://github.com/TrustworthyComputing/csaw_esc_2025
Date: November 5-7
Contact: Nektarios
The Embedded Security Challenge (ESC) returns in 2025 for the 18th time, and we are proud to announce another exciting and educational global competition! ESC is part of CSAW, which is founded by the department of Computer Science and Engineering at NYU Tandon School of Engineering, and is the most comprehensive student-run cyber security event in the world, featuring international competitions, workshops, and industry events.
ESC 2025 will be held in multiple regions: US-Canada, Europe, and India, with the finals taking place in November 2025.
- CSAW US-Canada: NYU Tandon School of Engineering, Brooklyn, USA.
- CSAW Europe: Grenoble Institute of Technology – ESISAR, Grenoble, France.
- CSAW India: Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur, India.
The competition is organized in all regions under the supervision of Professor Nektarios Tsoutsos (University of Delaware), the global challenge leads are Lars Folkerts and Rostin Shokri, who are also the US-Canada region challenge leads, along with Julian Lenis (ESC Contributor). In Europe, the competition is organized by Amir-Pasha Mirbaha (Grenoble INP). In India, ESC is supervised by Professors Debapriya Basu Roy and Urbi Chatterjee (IIT Kanpur), with Dipesh as the regional challenge lead.
Challenge Summary
This year, we are unleashing the power of AI: participants are encouraged to leverage deep learning and Large Language Models to automate hardware attacks, and design intelligent defenses in a new era of silicon warfare. The competition will focus on applying these cutting-edge techniques to classic hardware security problems, including side channel attacks (SCAs) and fault injection attacks (FIAs), which can be employed to exfiltrate private information from hardware. The 2025 event comprises a qualification and a final phase where teams will be able to learn about these attacks in a controlled and safe environment using a Chipwhisperer Nano board.
Further details and specifics can be found on the challenge description page.