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001Event

PwnSec CTF 2026

Humans vs Cyborgs

PwnSec is proud to present its 3rd edition CTF. Tune in for top jeopardy madness built by our team featuring web, crypto, reverse engineering, binary exploitation, cloud, forensics, misc, mobile, and more!

Sep 12, 2026, 02:00 PM UTC → Sep 13, 2026, 02:00 PM UTC|24 Hours|Teams
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PwnSec CTF 2026 — Humans vs Cyborgs poster
002About
FormatJeopardySolve challenges, submit flags, earn points.
Duration24 HoursFixed competition window.
ModeTeamsForm or join a team to compete.
ScoringDynamicPoints adjust based on solve count.
HumansImprovise. Human-driven solving: instinct, intuition and hands on keyboards.
CyborgsAutomate. Machine-driven solving: scripts, agents and autonomous pipelines.
WebCryptoReversePwnCloudForensicsMobileMisc
003Schedule
  1. RegistrationOpen
  2. Faction lock1 hour before the board opens
  3. Competition startSeptember 12, 2026 at 2:00 PM
  4. Competition endSeptember 13, 2026 at 2:00 PM
004FAQ
What is this event?PwnSec is proud to present its 3rd edition CTF. Tune in for top jeopardy madness built by our team featuring web, crypto, reverse engineering, binary exploitation, cloud, forensics, misc, mobile, and more!
How do I participate?Register an account, complete your profile, then create or join a team. Once the event starts, you can begin solving challenges.
How do factions work?Every team picks a side before the board opens — humans or cyborgs. Your faction locks when registration closes.
Is this a team competition?Yes. Participants compete in teams. Create or join a team after registration to participate.
When does the event take place?September 12, 2026 at 2:00 PM through September 13, 2026 at 2:00 PM, UTC. The competition runs for approximately 24 hours.
What are the rules?Attack the challenges, not the infrastructure. No flag sharing outside your team, no scoreboard games.
Can I use AI?Cyborg teams can. Human teams may only use AI as a search engine — see the AI policy below for exactly what is and isn't allowed.
005AI Policy

Two leaderboards. One CTF.

Everyone uses AI nowadays, and we can't force everyone to participate in the way we prefer. Every team has the right to play and compete however they want, and we will respect that. For PwnSec CTF, we will not ban AI usage. Instead, we run two separate leaderboards.

We want to make sure that everyone can enjoy our CTF. Whatever you choose, we respect your decision and will not judge you.

HumansTraditional

For people who want to experience the feeling of a traditional CTF without AI, competing against others following the same rules.

CyborgsHumans × AI

For people who want to use AI to increase their solving speed and explore challenges differently.

Allowed for Human teams
  • Using AI as an advanced search engine — for example, to look up or remind you of exact syntax, flags, or arguments for a tool.
Prohibited for Human teams
  • Providing challenge code, handouts, challenge descriptions, or other challenge materials to any AI product such as ChatGPT, Claude, Kimi, etc.
  • Allowing agentic tools such as Codex, Claude Code, etc. to work on a challenge or interact with a challenge's remote server.
  • Explaining the challenge idea or concept to an LLM and asking it for solving ideas, hints, or solutions.
  • Using AI for any other interaction directly related to solving the challenge.
  • Writing any block of code using AI.

To preserve the purpose of the Human leaderboard, we have mechanisms in place to detect AI usage. A Human team found using AI in a way that violates these rules will be moved to the Cyborg leaderboard.

006Access
Create an account to get started.Free entry · teams up to four · solo players matched on request
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