Opportunity brief
h4ckc0n is a Global Capture The Flag (CTF) organised by d4rkc0de, IIIT-Delhi, under ESYA 2026. h4ckc0n is a 24-hour international Jeopardy-style Capture The Flag competition.
Join the Discord server: https://discord.gg/kw8J5r2ZWh
The competition is designed to accommodate teams of varying skill levels, with a diverse challenge set covering multiple areas of cybersecurity.
- Date: 14 November 2026
- Duration: 24 hours
- Format: Jeopardy-style CTF
- Mode: Online, Team-based Competition
- Venue: Online!
Eligibility & Registration Guidelines:
- Target Audience: Anyone interested in cybersecurity and CTFs.
- Inter-College Teams: Allowed.
- Inter-Specialization Teams: Allowed; participants from different branches and years may form a team.
- Team Size: 6 people max
- Prerequisites: Basic understanding of cybersecurity, networking and computer systems is recommended.
Competition Format:
- Format: Online CTF.
- Infrastructure: Teams will receive a platform link with various cybersecurity challenges.
- Objective: Solve the specific challenges and only investigate the provided infrastructure/files.
- Scoring: Points will be awarded based on successful submits of flags.
- Monitoring: Automated monitoring and flag submission based scoring will be used.
- Number of Services/Challenges: To be announced during event.
- Duration: To be announced.
Skills & Areas Covered:
Participants may encounter challenges involving:
- Reverse Engineering, Web-exploitation, Forensics, AI/ML, Web3, OSINT, PWN, Cryptography, Miscellaneous
Rules & Code of Conduct:
- Attacking the competition infrastructure, organiser systems or any external infrastructure is strictly prohibited.
- Do not launch DoS/DDoS attacks against the competition infrastructure.
- Sharing flags, credentials, exploits or competition-sensitive information with other teams is prohibited unless explicitly permitted.
- Attempts to manipulate the scoring system, monitoring system or competition infrastructure are prohibited.
- Any vulnerability discovered in the underlying competition infrastructure must be reported to the organisers.
- Organisers reserve the right to disqualify teams violating competition rules.
- The organisers' decisions regarding scoring, disputes and disqualifications will be final.