Heavy use in CTFs doesn't surprise me at all. CTFs often throw curveballs or weird technologies that contestants might not be familiar with. Now you can get a starting point on what's going on, or how something works, instantly from an LLM and it's not a major problem if the LLM is wrong, you may just lose a little time.

In fact: https://wilgibbs.com/blog/defcon-finals-mcp/

Which makes me think: yes, llms can solve some of this, but still only some. It's more than a research tool, when you combine tools and agentic workflows. I don't see a reason it should slow down.