The Grand Finale of National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) – All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) Pentathon 2025 is being hosted by Guru Govind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIPU) is at its Dwarka campus.

A total 235 students have been selected out of 20,732 from around the country in the Stage I for the grand finale of the second edition of the national level cyber security Pentesting challenge for technical colleges and universities.

NCIIPC, AICTE and Innovation Cell of Ministry of Education, Govt. of India are jointly organising this event with platform partners as Amritha University and Venue partners as the GGSIPU.

The in-person grand finale round began today and will conclude on 3rd May 2025 where winners will be announced. The winner teams will be given Rs 2.50 lakh, Rs 1.50 lakh and Rs 1 lakh for first, second and third positions. Individual prizes of Rs 1 lakh, Rs 75thousand and Rs 50 thousand will also be given. In addition, shortlisted participants will be offered internships and join the national pentesting pool.

Addressing at the inauguration ceremony, the DG of NCIIPC Mr. Navin Kumar Singh said on the occasion that the objective of the challenge is to promote an indigenous ecosystem of cybersecurity talent to secure Indian critical information infrastructure. Given the criticality of CII to the Indian digital economy, there is need for our defences to grow stronger in the years ahead.

The Vice Chairman of AICTE Dr. Abhay Jere said on the occasion that we have to cultivate a culture of innovation in our country and also focus on knowledge – based economy rather than service – based economy.

AICTE colleges are playing a key role – not only in the competition but in various facets in safeguarding the nation- and lauded the Pentathon initiative emphasising the need for it to grow bigger in scale in the years to come.

The Vice Chancellor of IP University Padma Shri Prof. (Dr.) Mahesh Verma said that cyber security is national priority today and what a better way to build awareness,expertise and innovation than through a national-wide competition that challenges real-world thinking and hand-on problem solving. I am sure champions and legends emanate from this event.

He further commended the entire team for putting together such a state-of-the-art competition flawlessly.