Hackrate Ranked 1st in Hungary and 22nd Globally at Hack The Box’s Global Cyber Skills Benchmark 2026

Cybersecurity does not really have a World Cup for companies.

There are conferences, certifications, vendor awards, customer references, analyst reports, and countless marketing claims. But there are very few moments where hundreds of corporate cybersecurity teams from around the world sit down at the same time, face the same technical challenges, and compete under the same pressure.

The Hack The Box Global Cyber Skills Benchmark 2026 is one of those rare moments.

This year, Hackrate participated in Hack The Box’s annual Global Cyber Skills Benchmark competition, and our team achieved a result we are extremely proud of:

Hackrate’s Results

Ranking	Result
🇭🇺 Hungary	1st place
🇪🇺 Europe	9th place
🌍 Global	22nd place

In total, 589 corporate teams took part in the competition, including teams from some of the world’s most recognized technology, consulting, finance, and cybersecurity organizations.

For Hackrate, finishing 22nd globally was a powerful validation of the technical depth, persistence, and teamwork inside our company.

My initial goal was simple:

Finish in the top 10%.

That alone would have been a strong result in a competition of this scale.

Instead, the team finished in the top 5% worldwide.

That went far beyond my expectations.

What Is the Global Cyber Skills Benchmark?

The Hack The Box Global Cyber Skills Benchmark is a global Capture The Flag competition designed specifically for business teams.

It gives companies a practical way to measure their cybersecurity readiness against other organizations from around the world.

The 2026 edition, named Project Nightfall, ran from May 15 to May 20, 2026. It brought together corporate teams for a multi-day, hands-on competition built around realistic cybersecurity scenarios.

This was not a narrow or traditional CTF focused only on one technical area.

The competition covered a broad range of security domains:

The storyline behind Project Nightfall was also very relevant to the world we live in today.

Hack The Box framed the scenario around:

• nation-state cyber warfare,
• shared dependencies,
• critical infrastructure,
• virtualization stacks,
• identity providers,
• supplier ecosystems,
• and covert interference.

In other words, this was not just about solving puzzles.

It was about testing how well teams can:

• think,
• collaborate,
• investigate,
• exploit,
• adapt,
• and persist across a wide range of real-world offensive and defensive security problems.

Why This Result Matters to Us

At Hackrate, we spend every day working with companies that want to understand and improve their real security posture.

We provide:

• penetration testing,
• continuous security testing,
• managed vulnerability disclosure programs,
• bug bounty services,
• and security testing management through HackGATE.

Our work is not theoretical.

Our customers rely on us to identify real vulnerabilities, validate risks, guide remediation, and help them build stronger security programs.

That is why this result matters.

A competition like the Global Cyber Skills Benchmark is not a sales award. It is not based on a slide deck, a nomination, or a marketing campaign.

It is based on technical performance.

The team had to solve difficult challenges under time pressure. They had to divide work effectively. They had to move across different domains. They had to recognize patterns, test assumptions, write scripts, debug, reverse engineer, analyze artifacts, exploit weaknesses, and keep going when the first idea did not work.

That is very close to the mindset required in real offensive security work.

Of course, no CTF can perfectly reproduce a customer engagement. Real penetration testing also requires:

• communication,
• scoping,
• reporting,
• business context,
• responsible handling of sensitive systems,
• and clear remediation guidance.

But the core technical mindset is similar:

Find the weak point.
Understand the system.
Question assumptions.
Move carefully but quickly.
Validate evidence.
Document what matters.
Keep learning.

Those are the same principles we bring to our customers every day.

Competing Against Global Cybersecurity Teams

One of the most exciting parts of the Global Cyber Skills Benchmark is the field of participants.

This year’s competition included hundreds of companies, including teams from globally recognized organizations such as:

• NVIDIA,
• Accenture,
• Cisco,
• Deloitte,
• KPMG,
• GitHub,
• PayPal,
• JPMorgan,
• Microsoft,
• and many others.

For a Hungarian cybersecurity company, competing in such a global environment is already meaningful.

Ranking 22nd globally makes it even more special.

We are especially proud that Hackrate finished ahead of several internationally known organizations. Not because cybersecurity should be treated only as a scoreboard, but because these benchmarks give smaller and more focused teams the chance to prove themselves through direct technical performance.

In cybersecurity, reputation matters.
But skill matters more.

And in a competition like this, there is nowhere to hide behind brand size, headcount, or market visibility.

The challenges are there.
The leaderboard is there.
The team either solves them or does not.

Hackrate’s result shows that our team can compete at an international level with some of the strongest organizations in the industry.

A Broad Test of Real Cyber Skills

Modern cybersecurity is no longer a single-discipline field.

A strong team cannot rely only on web application security. Or only on infrastructure. Or only on cloud. Or only on binary exploitation.

The reality of today’s attack surface is much more complex.

Companies depend on:

• cloud platforms,
• identity providers,
• SaaS tools,
• APIs,
• third-party suppliers,
• CI/CD pipelines,
• mobile applications,
• internal networks,
• legacy systems,
• industrial systems,
• and increasingly AI-assisted workflows.

Attackers do not respect organizational boundaries, and they do not limit themselves to one technical category.

That is why the breadth of the Global Cyber Skills Benchmark is important.

The 2026 competition included challenges across areas that reflect the complexity of real environments:

Web challenges tested the ability to identify and exploit application-level weaknesses.

Reversing challenges required understanding compiled logic, hidden behavior, and how software actually works beneath the surface.

Pwn challenges demanded low-level exploitation thinking, memory corruption knowledge, and precision.

Forensics challenges tested investigation skills, artifact analysis, and the ability to reconstruct what happened from limited evidence.

Cryptography challenges required mathematical thinking and the ability to spot weak implementations or flawed assumptions.

Blockchain challenges reflected the growing importance of smart contract and decentralized system security.

Hardware and ICS challenges brought attention to areas that are increasingly relevant as critical infrastructure, IoT, and operational technology become more connected.

Cloud and machine-based challenges tested the kind of infrastructure and identity-related thinking that modern attackers often exploit in real incidents.

Why Diversity of Challenges Matters

This diversity matters because a real security team must be able to move between domains.

A vulnerability rarely announces itself in the exact category where you expect it.

Good security work often starts with uncertainty.

You may begin with a web application and end up investigating identity permissions. You may start with a cloud service and discover a vulnerable internal integration. You may analyze a log file and uncover an attack path that depends on business logic, infrastructure design, and weak operational controls.

The ability to stay effective in uncertainty is one of the most valuable skills a security team can have.

That is what this benchmark tested.

And that is why the result matters.

Teamwork Under Pressure

A multi-day CTF is not only a test of individual talent.

It is also a test of teamwork.

When there are many challenges open at the same time, the team has to make constant decisions:

• Which challenge should we prioritize?
• Who has the strongest background for this category?
• When should we continue pushing, and when should we switch?
• Which partial findings should be shared with others?
• How do we avoid duplicating work?
• How do we keep momentum when a challenge blocks us for hours?
• How do we stay focused over several days?

These questions are very familiar from real security projects.

In penetration testing, red teaming, and vulnerability research, technical ability is only one part of success.

The other part is coordination.

Strong teams:

• communicate clearly,
• share context,
• avoid tunnel vision,
• challenge each other’s assumptions,
• and know when to ask for a second pair of eyes.

This competition rewarded that kind of teamwork.

The Hackrate team showed not only technical skill, but also persistence and discipline.

Everyone contributed.
Everyone pushed.
And the final result reflects the collective strength of the team.

The Role of AI: It Did Not Kill the Game. It Raised the Bar.

One of the most interesting parts of this year’s competition was the role of AI.

AI usage among top teams was clearly on another level.

Before the competition, there was a reasonable concern that AI might make this kind of event less meaningful.

If models can summarize logs, explain code, generate scripts, and suggest approaches, does that reduce the value of human technical skill?

After the competition, my conclusion is the opposite.

AI did not kill the game.
It raised the bar.

Hack The Box allowed AI-assisted workflows in a controlled hybrid mode, while keeping the focus on human-led reasoning.

That distinction is important.

Using AI as a co-pilot can speed up analysis, generate ideas, explain unfamiliar syntax, help with scripting, and reduce repetitive work.

But it does not replace the need to understand what is happening.

It does not remove the need for judgment.
It does not magically solve ambiguous, multi-step technical problems without human direction.

In fact, AI may make strong teams even stronger because it rewards those who know how to:

• ask the right questions,
• validate outputs,
• recognize hallucinations,
• connect partial findings,
• and turn suggestions into working solutions.

The best teams were not simply “using AI.”

They were integrating it into their workflow intelligently.

This is very similar to what is happening in the broader cybersecurity industry.

AI is changing how security work is done. It can accelerate:

• research,
• analysis,
• triage,
• reporting,
• detection engineering,
• scripting,
• and development.

But it also increases the expectations placed on security professionals.

If everyone has access to better tools, then the differentiator becomes how well a team can use those tools.

The future of cybersecurity will not be human-only or AI-only.
It will be human expertise amplified by AI.

Competitions like the Global Cyber Skills Benchmark are starting to show what that future looks like.

Why Benchmarks Like This Are Valuable for Companies

Many organizations struggle to measure cybersecurity capability.

They may know:

• how many tools they have,
• how many alerts they receive,
• how many policies they maintain,
• how many training modules employees completed,
• or how many vulnerabilities were reported in the last quarter.

But those metrics do not always answer the most important question:

Can the team actually solve difficult security problems under pressure?

A hands-on benchmark provides a different kind of signal.

It shows how people perform when the answer is not given in advance. It reveals strengths and weaknesses across technical domains. It encourages learning through challenge. It creates a shared experience for the team. It gives leadership a more practical view of capability than passive training alone.

That is why we believe these kinds of competitions are valuable not only for offensive security companies, but for any organization that wants to build real cyber resilience.

Cybersecurity readiness is not created by documentation alone.

It is built through:

• practice,
• exposure,
• repetition,
• feedback,
• and continuous improvement.

A team that regularly tests itself becomes sharper.

What This Says About Hackrate

For us, this result confirms something we already believed:

Hackrate has a highly capable, hands-on technical team.

But it also reminds us that capability must be maintained.

Cybersecurity changes constantly.

New attack techniques appear. Platforms evolve. Cloud architectures become more complex. Identity becomes more central. AI changes both attacker and defender workflows. Regulations change. Customer expectations rise.

A result like this is not the end of the journey.

It is a snapshot.

It shows where we stood during one demanding global benchmark in May 2026. It gives us confidence, but it also gives us motivation to keep improving.

That mindset is important to us.

We do not want to be a company that relies only on past experience. We want to be a team that keeps testing itself, keeps learning, and keeps raising the level of what we deliver to customers.

This is exactly the mindset behind Hackrate’s services and HackGATE as well.

Security testing should not be treated as a one-time checkbox.

It should be:

• continuous,
• measurable,
• controlled,
• and connected to real risk.

Organizations need visibility into:

• what is being tested,
• what has been found,
• what has been fixed,
• and where exposure still exists.

A Proud Moment for the Team

This achievement belongs to the whole Hackrate team.

Finishing 1st in Hungary, 9th in Europe, and 22nd globally among hundreds of corporate teams is a result we are genuinely proud of.

It reflects:

• technical depth,
• persistence,
• teamwork,
• curiosity,
• and the kind of hands-on offensive security mindset we bring to customer projects every day.

We are proud to represent Hungary on the global cybersecurity stage.

We are also proud that Hackrate could stand alongside, and ahead of, many internationally recognized organizations in a competition based on real technical performance.

Congratulations to everyone involved.

And thank you to Hack The Box for organizing a benchmark that gives corporate teams a meaningful way to test themselves against the world.

For Hackrate, this was more than a competition.

It was a reminder of why we do what we do:

Helping organizations understand their real security posture, improve continuously, and build resilience through practical, hands-on expertise.

The scoreboard was one moment.

The mindset continues every day.

Want to strengthen your digital defenses? Or receive a thorough assessment of your cybersecurity posture?

Get in touch with us. Our team is always happy to chat