IIIT-Bangalore Students Win Top Two Ranks at CyberShield Hackathon, Bag ₹8 Lakh

A four-member team of M.Tech students from the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-Bangalore) earned the top two positions at the CyberShield Hackathon, securing a total cash prize of ₹8 lakh. The event was organised by IIT Hyderabad in collaboration with Bank of India and witnessed participation from close to 3,000 teams from universities across India.

The student team—comprising Chandrahas Reddy, Sarthak Maheshwari, Harsh Mohta, and Arismita Mukherjee—won first place for their primary project, taking home an award of ₹5 lakh. They also secured second place for their second project, earning an additional ₹3 lakh.

The competition challenged participants to devise technology-driven solutions to emerging cybersecurity and financial fraud challenges. The first problem statement focused on strengthening the identification and analysis of fraudulent mobile applications and malware, while the second task addressed the challenge of detecting mule accounts and evolving financial fraud patterns.

Detailing their top-ranking project, team member Sarthak Maheshwari said, “In the first project, we built a Generative AI-powered solution for identifying fraudulent mobile applications and malware. The system helps faster identification of malicious behaviour and associated risks from the apps. Seeing our solution recognised as the winning entry was a proud moment for the entire team and a meaningful validation.”

Addressing the team's second project, Arismita Mukherjee noted the growing threat of illegal transactions. She said, “We were challenged to develop solutions to identify mule accounts and respond to the changing nature of financial fraud. The team developed an AI/ML-based solution to detect mule accounts by combining regulatory and cross-channel banking data with feedback from human analysts, allowing the model to continuously adapt to evolving fraud patterns.”