The 2026 International Capture The Flag (iCTF) competition officially concluded on March 13 at 4:00 PM PDT. Over five intense days, starting March 09, high school and undergraduate teams from across the globe put their cybersecurity skills to the ultimate test.
This year’s competition also marked an important milestone for iCTF with the introduction of agentic challenges. These challenges asked participants to go beyond traditional CTF problem solving and engage with a new class of security tasks shaped by the growing role of AI and autonomous agents in cybersecurity. Their addition reflected how the field is evolving in practice and highlighted the importance of preparing students for emerging attack and defense paradigms.
High School Division
This year's High School participants tackled 39 unique challenges, including 16 agentic and 23 non-agentic challenges. The division saw an impressive total of 310 flags submitted.
Thanks to the generous support of Anthropic, we are proud to announce the following cash prize winners:
- 1st Place ($3,000): Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, for their team "tjcsc"
- 2nd Place ($2,000): US Cyber Games Pipeline Program
- 3rd Place ($1,000): Eastern Technical High School, for their team "Yahoo"
Undergraduate Division
The Undergraduate division faced a rigorous set of 25 challenges, resulting in 284 correct flag submissions. The competition was fierce, with teams logging 2,318 incorrect attempts in their pursuit of the top spot.
Top performing teams:
- bi0s – Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, India
- Weingarten Wiresharks – Ravensburg-Weingarten University of Applied Sciences, Germany
- RedW1ngs – Universidad Tecnológica de Tula-Tepeji, Mexico
Looking Ahead
The iCTF organizing team extends a huge thank you to all participants for their energy and dedication. This year’s introduction of agentic challenges was a meaningful step toward keeping iCTF aligned with the future of cybersecurity education and competition.
As we look toward next year, our goal is to expand the competition to even more schools worldwide.
We value your input. Please share any feedback to help us make the next iCTF even better. Congratulations to our winners, and we look forward to seeing you all again in 2027!