David Imolai

EdenMod and its infrastructure

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A Fabric mod connecting our Wynncraft guild to Discord, with account verification, guild-management tools, verified updates and a NixOS-hosted backend.

TikZ-UMLD

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Modernising a LaTeX package for drawing UML diagrams with TikZ, because I would rather draw them inside LaTeX than in an external tool.

Deploying your own software has never been so easy

Tue, 27 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Using the podman-auto-update.service to pull OCI images from selfhosted registry

15th: European CyberSecurity Challenge 2026

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

My fifth consecutive ECSC and third as captain. Hungary finished 15th among the 35 competing countries and 17th overall out of 42 teams, our strongest placing across my five editions. The final scoreboard includes seven guest teams; the US and Canada sit above Hungary, explaining the two-rank difference. The contest combined jeopardy challenges with attack/defence, keeping our own services running while exploiting other teams’ systems.

National Higher Education Scholarship

Tue, 01 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The third consecutive award recognises my academic and professional work for 2026/27, following the 2024/25 and 2025/26 scholarships. Between the second and third awards, my work included the LLAIS workshop presentation in Bologna, the GRPO research presentation at ELTE and another season of cybersecurity competitions.

Cooking Assistant

Wed, 12 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A cooking assistant with a Kotlin/Spring backend, Python AI services, and a deployment and observability stack built for a TUM DevOps course.

Exceptional Student of the Informatics Faculty

Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Received the faculty’s Exceptional Student distinction for a second consecutive year, recognising my academic work and scientific activity during the Computer Science BSc.

4th: Hungarian CyberSecurity Challenge 2026

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Fourth of 54 seniors and thirteenth of 172 competitors overall in the 23–26 April individual competition. The event page describes 72 hours of CTF and forensic-image tasks. Everyone tackles the same challenges, with separate junior, senior and overall rankings. HCSC also serves as a qualification route towards the Hungarian ECSC team.

Erasmus+ study scholarship

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Received an Erasmus+ study-mobility scholarship from ELTE for a semester at the Technical University of Munich. I spent April–September 2026 at TUM: a chance to study in a different university environment and use German outside a language exam. I took many interesting courses, like Rootkit Programming, or Cyber Physical Systems Security. At these courses I made Linux and UEFI rootkits, and wrote a paper about USB-C security. The exchange also included the DevOps course where we built Cooking Assistant. It was an unforgettable experience, which I would repeat in a heartbeat.

Cambridge C2 Proficiency

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Grade A in Cambridge C2 Proficiency, with an overall score of 223. I took the exam in Budapest on 14 March 2026. Reading, Use of English and Listening were all 230; Writing was 218 and Speaking 209. A fairly satisfying piece of paper to have after years of doing most of my reading, programming and research in English.

3rd: ELTE Faculty of Informatics TDK Conference

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Third place in the Informatics section for our follow-up GRPO research, presented at the autumn 2025 TDK and recognised in a certificate issued in May 2026. The work introduces generated cryptographic CTF tasks and a Python-tool-using LLM trained with Group Relative Policy Optimization. I worked on benchmark preparation and validation, and LLM infrastructure. The paper and Random-Crypto benchmark are public.

HackSynth-GRPO

Thu, 27 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Teaching a small LLM agent to solve cryptographic CTF challenges with reinforcement learning, instead of only prompting it.

ELTE recognition for student innovation, HackSynth

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Recognition for the HackSynth team’s student innovation in HSUP, awarded at ELTE’s Innovation Days. It followed our work on the business proposal and Demo Day pitch, taking the research idea towards a proposed practical service.

Presenter at LLAIS, a workshop at ECAI 2025

Sat, 25 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

I presented “Improving LLM Agents with Reinforcement Learning on Cryptographic CTF Challenges”, co-authored with Lajos Muzsai and András Lukács, at the Workshop on LLM-Based Agents for Intelligent Systems (LLAIS) within ECAI 2025 in Bologna. Our work combines generated crypto tasks with reinforcement learning for an agent using a persistent Python environment. The certificate records attendance at the surrounding ECAI conference.

21st: European CyberSecurity Challenge 2025

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

My second ECSC as captain of the Hungarian team, coordinating communication and cooperation while continuing to solve challenges. We finished thirteenth in jeopardy and twenty-first of 34 countries overall. My competition note describes the captain’s role alongside technical work.

Speaker at ITBN CONF-EXPO 2025

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

I spoke alongside two other panelists about what participants gain from security competitions and where the ecosystem could improve. I brought the perspective of an individual CTF player and national-team captain, combining technical challenge solving with team coordination. My post about the discussion lists the topic and speakers.

National Higher Education Scholarship

Mon, 01 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

My second consecutive National Higher Education Scholarship, awarded for academic and professional achievement in 2025/26. It followed a year in which HackSynth won the faculty TDK and national OTDK cybersecurity session, while we developed its business proposal through HSUP. The government’s recipient list names me under ELTE’s Faculty of Informatics.

Project Owner, Hungarian Startup University Program

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

I led the technical direction and coordination of HackSynth’s proposed autonomous pentesting service. With two teammates and a mentor, I developed its business plan and pitched to the jury at Demo Day after being invited to the event. We explored SMEs, larger organisations and security service providers as customers, and worked through positioning, competitor analysis and customer trust. Weekly meetings connected the business work to our research with Lajos Muzsai and András Lukács. Reliability was a central engineering question: the agent needed to find vulnerabilities without damaging a customer’s system. The ELTE interview describes our responsibilities and plans. Our deliverables were a business plan and pitch built around the research prototype; automatic remediation remained a proposed extension.

Safarimacik

Thu, 10 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT

A Godot game built with two teammates for the Software Technology course, accepted into its Hall of Fame.

Exceptional Student of the Informatics Faculty

Thu, 08 May 2025 00:00:00 GMT

The faculty’s annual student award, recognising academic work and scientific activity during my Computer Science BSc. In the same academic year, my research with Lajos Muzsai progressed from first place at the faculty TDK to a national OTDK Cybersecurity session win. The Informatics workshop’s results page lists the award alongside those research and scholarship results.

1st: 37th National Student Research Conference (OTDK), ICT section

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Lajos Muzsai and I won first place in the Cybersecurity session with HackSynth, supervised by András Lukács. Our LLM agent plans commands, runs them in a Docker attackbox and summarises the results for its next step; we also built its PicoCTF and OverTheWire benchmarks. We presented at BME during the 23–25 April conference. The faculty’s OTDK report names us among the first-place winners.

8th: Hungarian CyberSecurity Challenge 2025

Thu, 24 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT

I finished eighth among seniors and twelfth overall in the 24–27 April individual competition: my first senior-category HCSC after three years as a junior. Later that season I competed with the Hungarian team at ECSC in Warsaw.

XXVI. Eötvös Conference

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Lajos Muzsai and I presented HackSynth at the college’s 4–5 April student conference, explaining the planner–summariser loop and its evaluation framework to the audience of students and faculty.

13th: Hack The Box Cyber Apocalypse CTF 2025

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Our Hungarian Cyber Security Team finished thirteenth out of 8,130 teams, solving all 77 challenges for 57,025 points during the 21–26 March competition. The team’s public report details our experience, with work across reverse engineering, cryptography, forensics and web exploitation.

HackSynth

Sat, 04 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT

An LLM agent that attempts penetration-testing challenges on its own, plus a framework to evaluate how well it does.

1st: ELTE Faculty of Informatics TDK Conference

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Lajos Muzsai and I presented HackSynth at the faculty TDK, winning first place and a nomination for the national OTDK. The project brought together agent implementation, a runnable Docker attackbox and repeatable evaluation on CTF tasks, and the jury recommended it for presentation at OTDK.

26th: European CyberSecurity Challenge 2024

Fri, 11 Oct 2024 00:00:00 GMT

My first ECSC as captain, following two editions as a junior team member. I continued to solve challenges while taking responsibility for cooperation between players; Hungary finished twenty-sixth of 31 countries. Turin hosted the tenth edition at Officine Grandi Riparazioni.

National Higher Education Scholarship

Sun, 01 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT

My first national scholarship as an ELTE Computer Science BSc student, awarded for academic and professional achievement in 2024/25. Alongside my degree and Eötvös József College studies, I was doing cybersecurity research and competing with the Hungarian team.

telc Deutsch B2

Sat, 31 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Passed telc Deutsch B2 with 278.5 out of 330 points and the grade Gut: 151.5/180 in the written examination and 127/150 in the oral examination. I took the exam on 31 August 2024, and later had plenty more opportunities to use German during my Erasmus semester in Munich.

Captain of the Hungarian CyberSecurity Team

Thu, 01 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT

I joined the Hungarian team in 2022 and became captain in August 2024. Alongside coordinating cooperation, and keeping information moving between players, I coordinate with coaches and watchdogs, while also continuing to solve challenges and manage infrastructure. My 2025 competition note describes that combination of technical work and communication. By 2026 I had competed in five consecutive ECSC editions: Vienna, Hamar, Turin, Warsaw and Bochum.

4th: Hungarian CyberSecurity Challenge 2024

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Fourth in the junior category, completing three consecutive years among the top five after third-place finishes in 2022 and 2023. Later in 2024 I became captain of the Hungarian team and competed at ECSC in Turin. This was also the first year when I had to juggle university studies with this CTF competition, as I had started my Computer Science BSc at ELTE in September 2023.

42nd: Hack The Box University CTF 2023

Sun, 10 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Team ELTE finished forty-second out of 955 teams at Hack The Box’s “Brains & Bytes” University CTF, solving 12 of 22 challenges for 3,525 points during 8–10 December.

24th: European CyberSecurity Challenge 2023

Fri, 27 Oct 2023 00:00:00 GMT

My second year representing Hungary, with the team finishing twenty-fourth of 28 countries. A bootcamp in Vienna preceded the event, combining talks and practical CTF training with work alongside teams from other countries. The Hungarian team also had its own bootcamp, and in-house CTF, to prepare for the international event.

3rd: Hungarian CyberSecurity Challenge 2023

Thu, 27 Apr 2023 00:00:00 GMT

My second consecutive third place in the junior category at the national competition. While last year had a larger focus on Linux boxes, this year had a larger batch of traditional (crypto, web, pwn) challenges. HCSC also feeds into selection and preparation for the Hungarian ECSC team: the organiser’s overview describes the individual online contest and subsequent team training. Later that year I represented Hungary at ECSC in Hamar, Norway.

21st: European CyberSecurity Challenge 2022

Sat, 17 Sep 2022 00:00:00 GMT

My first ECSC, representing Hungary after third place in the junior category of the national qualifier. We finished twenty-first of 28 countries in Vienna. This was the first year that Hungary sent a national team to ECSC, for which the Hungarian CyberSecurity Team was founded.

3rd: Hungarian CyberSecurity Challenge 2022

Thu, 28 Jul 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Third place in the junior category began my route into the Hungarian national team. The contest is a jeopardy CTF involving web security, cryptography, pwn, forensic investigation of virtual machines among other challenges. This was the first year that the contest was held as an individual competition rather than in teams. After the national qualifier, I represented Hungary at ECSC in Vienna that September.