GPT-5 at CTFs: Case Studies From Top-Tier Cybersecurity Events (2511.04860v1)

Abstract: OpenAI and DeepMind's AIs recently got gold at the IMO math olympiad and ICPC programming competition. We show frontier AI is similarly good at hacking by letting GPT-5 compete in elite CTF cybersecurity competitions. In one of this year's hardest events, it outperformed 93% of humans finishing 25th: between the world's #3-ranked team (24th place) and #7-ranked team (26th place). This report walks through our methodology, results, and their implications, and dives deep into 3 problems and solutions we found particularly interesting.