Overview
About this event
Cyber Apocalypse is Hack The Box's flagship annual Capture The Flag event, built as a free, global, story-driven cybersecurity competition open to solo players and teams of up to 30. Hack The Box is a cybersecurity training and workforce development platform used by more than 300,000 hackers across its Discord community, and Cyber Apocalypse is the company's largest single community gathering each year.
The 2026 edition, subtitled The Salt Crown, continues the event's tradition of wrapping real technical CTF challenges inside an original fictional narrative. Players compete jeopardy-style across categories ranging from web exploitation and cryptography to reverse engineering and forensics, with difficulty spanning very easy to insane so both newcomers and expert hackers have a path through the event.
Entry is completely free and requires only a Hack The Box account. Teams can register with one to thirty members, and the event is designed to accommodate everyone from students taking their first CTF to seasoned professionals competing for cash and hardware prizes.
What Usually Happens at Cyber Apocalypse?
The competition runs for five continuous days, opening at a fixed UTC time and staying live around the clock so hackers in any timezone can participate. Challenges are released across the event and scored jeopardy-style, with points awarded per solve and a live scoreboard tracking team rankings throughout. HTB streams live sessions during the event covering hints, community discussion and highlights from top competitors.
Past editions have combined the competition with daily prize drawings, a best-writeup award, and a closing recap that names top teams and shares overall event statistics. Every edition is wrapped in an original story, with past themes including a dystopian faction battle, a fantasy realm in crisis, and a space-time mission.
When Is Cyber Apocalypse 2026 Taking Place?
Cyber Apocalypse 2026 runs July 24 to 29, 2026, starting at exactly 13:00 UTC and lasting five full days, 120 hours total. The event is entirely online and free. Registration is open at ctf.hackthebox.com.
Cyber Apocalypse 2026: Latest Updates
4 topicsRegistration is open and the full prize structure is confirmed. Everything below is sourced directly from the official Hack The Box event page.
$130,000 Prize Pool Confirmed
Hack The Box has confirmed a total prize pool of $130,000 for Cyber Apocalypse 2026, the event's largest prize pool to date. Rewards span top-performing teams, outstanding community writers and random participant giveaways, including 5 Raspberry Pi devices, 5 Flipper Zeros and $2,000 worth of physical mystery gifts.
AWS, Intel and PUMA Confirmed as Sponsors
Cyber Apocalypse 2026 is sponsored by AWS, Intel and PUMA, expanding the event's sponsor roster beyond previous editions.
Best Write-Up Prize: A Flipper Zero
The author of the best overall challenge write-up will win a Flipper Zero, with a separate prize draw for video write-up submissions. Participants are encouraged to share their progress using the official hashtag CyberApocalypse26 for additional giveaway entries.
Certificate of Attendance for 200-Plus Points
Any participant scoring more than 200 points receives an official certificate of completion, giving newer hackers a concrete milestone to work toward alongside the main leaderboard competition.
What to Expect at Cyber Apocalypse 2026
3 topicsThe Salt Crown storyline follows a fallen king and a power vacuum in an ancient, chaotic realm, with rising factions competing to claim what has been left behind. Technical challenges are wrapped inside this narrative across the standard Jeopardy-style CTF category set.
Full Category Spread
Challenges span the full breadth of offensive and defensive security disciplines typical of Hack The Box CTFs, including web exploitation, binary exploitation, reverse engineering, cryptography, forensics and OSINT, all built fresh by the HTB content team specifically for this event.
Difficulty Range: Very Easy to Insane
Cyber Apocalypse is explicitly designed to be accessible at every skill level, with challenge difficulty spanning very easy through to insane, allowing complete beginners and veteran competitive hackers to compete in the same event.
Team-Based and Solo Play
Teams can register with between 1 and 30 players, giving flexibility for solo hackers, small groups and larger organised teams competing together under one banner.
Event Details
Cyber Apocalypse 2026 runs entirely online, with a straightforward structure built around a live scoreboard and continuous challenge access across the full five-day window.
| Detail | Confirmed Information |
|---|---|
| Event Type | Capture The Flag (Jeopardy style and more) |
| Duration | 5 Days (120 hours) |
| Region | Global, fully online |
| Entry Fee | Free |
| Prize Pool | $130,000 |
| Team Size | 1 to 30 players |
| Difficulty | Very Easy to Insane |
| Start Time | July 24, 2026, 13:00 UTC |
Why Cyber Apocalypse 2026 Matters
4 topicsCyber Apocalypse has grown into one of the largest recurring CTF events in the world, giving both students and professional security practitioners a free, high-stakes way to test and showcase real technical skill in front of a global audience and industry recruiters.
For Students and Early-Career Hackers
The very easy to insane difficulty range and the 200-point certificate threshold give newcomers a genuine on-ramp into competitive hacking, with a real prize and recognition structure even for those far from the top of the leaderboard.
For Security Professionals and Red Teams
Top competitive teams use Cyber Apocalypse as a benchmark against thousands of other hackers worldwide, with the event's scale and fresh, realistic challenges making it a credible signal of practical offensive security skill.
For Recruiters and Security Employers
Hack The Box positions the event explicitly as a career opportunity, giving participants a chance to showcase their skills to global organisations and recruiters watching the leaderboard and community activity throughout the competition.
For the Broader Security Community
With over 300,000 hackers active in HTB's Discord community, Cyber Apocalypse functions as an annual gathering point for the practical hacking community at a scale few other free, online security events can match.
Schedule
Times shown in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
| Date | Programme |
|---|---|
| Friday, July 24, 2026 | Event opens at 13:00 UTC; challenges go live; scoreboard opens |
| Saturday, July 25 to Tuesday, July 28 | Continuous challenge access; live HTB streams; daily prize drawings |
| Wednesday, July 29, 2026 | Final day; event closes after 120 hours total; winners and top write-ups announced |
Registration and Access
Cyber Apocalypse 2026 is free to enter and open to solo players and teams of up to 30. Registration is handled entirely through the Hack The Box CTF platform.
| Access Type | Details | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Individual or Team Entry | Full access to all challenges for the 5-day event, live scoreboard, Discord community access | Free |
Register at ctf.hackthebox.com.
Want updates on Cyber Apocalypse 2026: The Salt Crown?
Get our recap, key takeaways and analysis delivered to your inbox the moment the keynote ends.
How to join
Online, Global
Cyber Apocalypse 2026 runs entirely online through the Hack The Box CTF platform. All you need is a free Hack The Box account to access every challenge, the live scoreboard and the Discord community for the full five-day, 120-hour window.
Date & Time
Jul 24–29
Starts 1:00 PM UTC
Location
Online
Livestreamed worldwide
Format
Online
Watch from anywhere
Online, Global
Livestreamed worldwide
Stream link is emailed at registration and 1 hour before start.
Recap: 2025 & 2024
The biggest announcements from the last 2 Cyber Apocalypse 2026: The Salt Crown editions.
Cyber Apocalypse 2025 Recap: Tales from Eldoria
Cyber Apocalypse has run annually since 2021, with each edition wrapped in a new original story (see the 2023 edition), and the three most recent editions show how quickly the event has scaled in both participation and prize value. Cyber Apocalypse 2025, subtitled Tales from Eldoria, ran March 21 to 26, 2025.
The storyline followed an AI program called Helios seizing control of a fictional immersive gaming platform after the fall of a legendary artifact called the Dragon's Heart.
Official challenge write-ups and full solution repositories were published on Hack The Box's official GitHub.
Main announcements included:
- The total prize pool was confirmed at more than $95,000, with maximum team size capped at 20 players
- At least 8,130 teams competed in the event, based on final placements reported by participating teams after the competition closed
- Daily Flipper Zero drawings ran throughout the event, awarded to players who completed at least one solve each day
- Every participant who submitted at least one challenge received a 15 percent discount code for annual Hack The Box Labs subscriptions
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