Every November, one corner of DefCamp gets louder than the rest: keyboards clatter, radios hiss, a drone circles inside a netted cage, and someone at the lock-picking table finally hears the click.
That corner is the Hacking Village, and the DefCamp 2026 Hacking Village lineup is now complete, with 19 competitions running during the 16th edition of DefCamp on November 19 and 20, 2026, at the Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest.
Welcome to the DefCamp 2026 Hacking Village: here’s the deal
The DefCamp 2026 Hacking Village is the hands-on competition area of DefCamp, the largest cybersecurity conference in Central and Eastern Europe, where attendees test their security skills on real targets for two full days. DefCamp has hosted more than 50 competitions there since 2016, and this year’s 19 cover CTF, pentesting, cloud, malware, hardware, radio, drones, space systems, AI agents, and OSINT.
And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for: here’s what to expect from the Village this year.
D-CTF Finals: the main event of the DefCamp 2026 Hacking Village
DefCamp Capture the Flag (D-CTF) is one of the oldest CTF competitions in Central and Eastern Europe, and this year the best teams from the qualifiers meet in Bucharest for the D-CTF x TFCCTF Attack & Defense final, organized with The Few Chosen (TFC).
The Ascent: from the server room to the cloud in 60 minutes
The Ascent gives you a foothold in the network, and one hour to climb all the way to the company’s crown jewels in the cloud. Every stage unlocks the next, so you earn every step on the way up.
Ping of Cloud: one input, a full cloud compromise
Ping of Cloud starts with a harmless-looking diagnostic tool that politely answers your pings. Find the flaw behind it, and that tiny form becomes your door into an entire cloud environment. From there, every privilege you escalate and every service you pivot through brings you one step closer to the flags hiding in the clouds.
Machines Hacked Politely: chain your way to one final flag
Machines Hacked Politely starts with an ordinary web application and ends deep inside a fictional organization’s infrastructure. You chain one weakness to the next across APIs, cloud and AI components, and the polite part is entirely up to you.
Agentic CTF: let your AI agent do the hacking
Agentic CTF settles the eternal conference debate about whose AI agent is the smartest. You build the harness, from a single agent to a whole swarm, then sit back and watch it hack sealed challenges completely on its own.
Meridian Malware: one bank, two sides
Meridian Malware, organized by Bit Sentinel, welcomes you to Meridian Bank and asks you to pick a side. Blue Team players dissect malware from real incidents, while Red Team players build sneaky payloads and try to slip past the bank’s defenses.
The Honeycomb: guard the hive or steal the honey
The Honeycomb splits the room into Guard Bees who defend the hive and Hornets who try to steal the honey. Friendly Beekeepers help first-timers all day, and the Hive “Beengo” turns OSINT, forensics, and web challenges into a game of bingo.
Threat Modelling Village: find the flaws before you build
Threat modeling means finding what can go wrong in a system’s design before an attacker does, and this village teaches it through the Four Question Framework from the core principles of threat modelling. Small teams then pull apart a realistic architecture together, and beginners are very welcome.
Memory Leak: crack the PCB
Memory Leak hands you a mysterious circuit board full of secrets. Sniff its memory reads, sneak through a hidden debug port, and convince the board to tell you everything, even if this is your first time near a soldering iron.
Null Your Warranty Village: pry it open
Null Your Warranty Village hands you real gadgets, real flaws, and a real reason to pry things open. Tackle black‑box devices, discover hidden vulnerabilities, and score points (and prizes) for every exploit you find. Sometimes the best way to learn is to break stuff and rebuild it smarter.
Untangle the Spectrum: master the airwaves
Untangle the Spectrum sends you chasing real BLE, Wi-Fi, and LoRa signals through the air, with real hardware and zero simulations. Decode the packets, find the hidden beacons, and claim the title of DefCamp Spectrum Champion.
[ NO_CARRIER ]: drone hacking lands at DefCamp
The [ NO_CARRIER ] drone village lands at DefCamp for the first time, bringing flight controllers, video feeds, and telemetry that trust far too easily. Warm up on the FPV simulators, then try to hijack a real drone flying inside a netted cage while the whole room watches.
HiveHack Space Hacking Village: own the orbit
The HiveHack Space Hacking Village puts satellites, ground stations, and mission control on the table. Break into a live space mission before the defenders catch you, or solve space-themed challenges at your own pace, since both paths share one leaderboard.
Lock Picking Village: a timeless classic
The Lock Picking Village is the DefCamp classic that never gets old. Grab a pick, train your patience, and discover how neatly physical security fits the hacker mindset. Whether you’re a noob or a pro, visit the village to learn something new and showcase your skills while also competing against other lockpickers for prizes and glory!
ClickBait: investigate real phishing cases
ClickBait turns you into a detective working on anonymized real-world cases. You dissect phishing campaigns and follow the clues with OSINT (open-source intelligence, the analysis of publicly available information), and afterwards you will look at every “urgent” email like a crime scene.
Target John: classic OSINT fun
Target John hands you a few details about a mysterious target and a list of tasks that get more mischievous as you go. Curiosity matters more than code here, and the judges love extra style and creativity.
Trace Labs OSINT Search Party CTF: help find missing people
The Trace Labs OSINT Search Party CTF puts your OSINT skills to work on real missing-persons cases, and Trace Labs sends everything teams find to the law enforcement agencies involved. The game is passive reconnaissance only, so read the Trace Labs search party rules before you join.
CyberDojoTM CTF: the perfect first CTF
CyberDojoTM CTF is the perfect first CTF, with challenges that range from gentle warmups to hard n-day exploits. Friendly mentors hand out hints whenever you get stuck, so you learn as you play.
HackTheGame Village: break the game
HackTheGame Village invites you to cheat in games that were built to be hacked. Edit memory, bend the game logic, and outsmart the anti-cheat, with challenges that start at beginner level. The game says you cannot do it. Prove it wrong.
Ready, set, hack!
The DefCamp 2026 Hacking Village runs for two full days and welcomes first-time players as warmly as CTF veterans.
Big thanks to CyberEDU, Electron, HACKOUT, Hex-Rays and OffSec for making this possible!
Whether you want to hijack a drone, outsmart a bank’s defenses, crack open a circuit board, or let your AI agent do the hacking, a competition is waiting with your name on it. Bring your curiosity, swap tricks with the people at the next table, and leave with new skills and stories you will tell until next November.
So, are you in? Grab your DefCamp 2026 ticket, pre-register for your favorite competitions, and meet us on November 19 and 20 at the Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest.
See you in the Hacking Village!
