This English translation of the conditions of participation is given as a courtesy. In case of discrepancies, the German version shall prevail.
Conditions of participation for ACSC 2026#
Everybody is allowed to participate in the qualification for the Austria Cyber Security Challenge 2025. However, participation in the finale for the “junior” and “senior” categories requires Austrian citizenship, living in Austria or enrollment in an Austrian educational institution.
The cut-off date for the age groups is the 31st of December of the competition year (for ACSC 2026, it is 31.12.2026).
The organizers reserve the right to change the categorization of participants if it is believed that it was not done correctly.
The ACSC qualifiers are an individual competition. This means that sharing solutions, information or other content with other individuals or groups while the competition is running is prohibited. This also applies to the use of solutions created by other individuals or groups. The use of solutions created by other individuals or groups can lead to disqualification.
The only exception to this rule is in regards to beginner challenges. More information can be found in the Beginner Challenges section.
The code of conduct for the ACSC is presented further below in this page.
Category “junior”#
Participation is open to everybody born between 01.01.2006 and 31.12.2011 who has Austrian citizenship, lives in Austria or is enrolled in an Austrian educational institution.
The top 21 juniors, based on qualification, will be invited to the finale.
Category “senior”#
Participation is open to everybody born between 01.01.2001 and 31.12.2005 who has Austrian citizenship, lives in Austria or is enrolled in an Austrian educational institution.
The top 21 seniors, based on qualification, will be invited to the finale.
Category “open”#
The category “open” is OPEN to ALL security-interested people, regardless of age, citizenship or place of residence.
Due to the (partial) overlap in qualification challenges between Germany, Switzerland and Austria, the selection of finalists is designed to limit excessive overrun (as the “open” category in the finale are played as the “Staatsmeisterschaft”).
The total number of players invited to the finale from the “open” category is 20, with the following criteria:
- At least 15 players must have either Austrian citizenship, live in Austria or are enrolled in an Austrian educational institution
- The remaining 5 players are purely selected based on their ranking in the open category.
As an example, assume that the top 8 ranked players in the open category are not from Austria (i.e., they do not fulfill requirement 1). In this case, only the top 5 of these 8 players will be invited to the finals. The remaining 15 spots will be filled by the highest-ranked players who meet the Austrian criteria, ensuring that the majority of finalists are from Austria while still allowing for international participation based on merit.
Exceptions#
Persons who participate in the organisation of the ACSC qualifiers or are expected to participate in the organisation of the final are excluded from participation. This includes persons who do not actively participate in the organisation, but do have access to the organisation’s resources, information, infrastructure, or similar, that is related to the ACSC qualifiers or the final.
The organizers reserve the right to change the categorization of participants if it is believed that they have been incorrectly categorized.
The organizer furthermore reserves the right to exclude any person from participation if false information about that person is thought to have been provided.
Code of Conduct#
The goal of this competition is to allow participants to practice their skills and have fun. We want everyone to enjoy a fair game. For this reason, we ask you to follow these simple rules:
- No attacks against the infrastructure. Attempts to circumvent the limitations imposed by the CTF infrastructure are forbidden. We will reward responsibly disclosed vulnerabilities with eternal glory. Please open a ticket and inform us whenever you suspect that you are allowed to do specific actions that the infrastructure should have prevented.
- No DoS. Causing unnecessarily high loads for CPU, traffic, memory, I/O, etc. on our infrastructure, or any other party, is strictly prohibited.
- Do not try to bruteforce flags by doing an unreasonable number of attempts in the flag submission page. We guarantee our flags to be unguessable™.
- If you think you found a way to hack into a challenge more easily than intended, please let us know by opening a ticket.
- Attacking other participants’ devices is severely prohibited and will lead to disqualification.
- Sharing flags, exploits, or hints between participants while the competition is running is severely prohibited. An exception to this is made for beginner challenges, which are explained in more detail in the section Beginner Challenges.
- Organizers are actively monitoring the network traffic and record violations reported by participants. Violation of the rules or any other hostile behavior may lead to deduction of points or exclusion from the competition. Please, let’s be nice ❤️.
These rules may change as more issues are raised by the participants. Also, the organizers keep the right to change them at any time. Please remember that it is impossible to list all rules and exceptions that apply to the CTF competition. When in doubt, use common sense or open a ticket on Discord.
Beginner Challenges#
Beginner challenges are challenges on our competition infrastructure, that are specifically marked as such and include a link to a discord channel in the official ACSC discord server directly in the challenge description.
IMPORTANT: You are only allowed to discuss a challenge while the competition is running, if it is marked as beginner challenge and directly links to a channel on OUR discord server from the challenge description on https://ctf.acsc.land. You are also ONLY allowed to discuss these challenges either in the respective provided channel or in-person (such as in an educational setting).
DISCUSSING ANY OTHER CHALLENGE WHILE THE COMPETITION IS RUNNING IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED AND WILL LEAD TO DISQUALIFICATION. If you are not sure, what can be communicated where and when, feel free to just open a ticket on Discord.
Keep in mind, that therefore there will be spoilers in the respective discord channels. If you write something that might be a spoiler to somebody else then please wrap it in spoiler tags (you can use ||spoiler text that will be hidden by default||).
Privacy and Legal#
For topics concerning data protection or other legal concerns, the imprint must be observed.