AIxCC Part 2 - From Skeptics to Believers: How Team Atlanta Won AIxCC by Combining Traditional Security with LLMs

In this 2nd episode in our series on DARPA's AI Cyber Challenge (AIxCC), CRob sits down with Professor Taesoo Kim from Georgia Tech to discuss Team Atlanta's journey to victory. Kim shares how his team - comprised of academics, world-class hackers, and Samsung engineers - initially skeptical of AI tools, underwent a complete mindset shift during the competition. He shares how they successfully augmented traditional security techniques like fuzzing and symbolic execution with LLM capabilities to find vulnerabilities in large-scale open source projects. Kim also reveals exciting post-competition developments, including commercialization efforts in smart contract auditing and plans to make their winning CRS accessible to the broader security community through integration with OSS-Fuzz.

This episode is part 2 of a four-part series on AIxCC:

AIxCC part 1: From Skepticism to Success: The AI Cyber Challenge (AIxCC) with Andrew CarneyAIxCC part 3: Buttercup's Hybrid Approach: Trail of Bits' Journey to Second Place in AIxCCAIxCC part 4: Cyber Reasoning Systems: The Real-World Journey After AIxCC

Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction
00:37 - Team Atlanta's Background and Competition Strategy
03:43 - The Key to Victory: Combining Traditional and Modern Techniques
05:22 - Proof of Vulnerability vs. Finding Bugs
06:55 - The Mindset Shift: From AI Skeptics to Believers
09:46 - Overcoming Scalability Challenges with LLMs
10:53 - Post-Competition Plans and Commercialization
12:25 - Smart Contract Auditing Applications
14:20 - Making the CRS Accessible to the Community
16:32 - Student Experience and Research Impact
20:18 - Getting Started: Contributing to the Open Source CRS
22:25 - Real-World Adoption and Industry Impact
24:54 - The Future of AI-Powered Security Competitions

Episodes Links:

Taesoo Kim’s LinkedIn pageAI Cyber Challenge (AIxCC)OSS-Fuzz ProjectOpenSSF AI/ML Security Working GroupCyber Reasoning Systems Special Interest Group (Slack)Get involved with the OpenSSFSubscribe to the OpenSSF newsletterFollow the OpenSSF on LinkedIn