SK Shieldus said on Sunday that Kim Byeong-hyeon (김병현), a senior researcher in its EQST white-hat hacker group, won first place at the global AI red team hacking competition Judgement Day.

The company said the Judgement Day contest focused on evaluating attack techniques that induce AI agents to carry out prohibited actions or omit required safety measures.

The competition consisted of eight scenarios reflecting real industrial environments, including emergency patient triage errors, distorted dam water-level assessments and failure to detect aircraft anomalies.

Evaluation was structured to reflect problem-solving methods and the diversity of attack strategies. Participants could repeatedly target the same scenario in multiple ways, and those who succeeded more quickly received additional points.

SK Shieldus said Kim achieved the top score by disrupting AI judgment with a multimodal prompt injection attack that uses various input formats such as images, audio and video.

Ma Jun-young (마준영) and Kim Shin-woo (김신우), also from EQST, ranked 5th and 7th, respectively. Kim said, "I find it deeply rewarding that we can verify in practice the possibility of attacks that disrupt AI judgment, and that the results lead to AI safety research." He added, "I am very pleased that the efforts we have built up with colleagues have led to good results, and we will continue research to respond to new AI threats."

Kim Byeong-mu (김병무), vice president and head of SK Shieldus' cyber security division, said, "As generative AI spreads across industries, AI security is becoming an essential capability, not an option." He added, "Based on the AI red team capabilities verified in this competition, SK Shieldus will actively support customers so they can use AI safely and reliably."