Conditions of participation for ACSC 2026 Finale#
Participation in the ACSC 2026 Finale is only available to those who have qualified through the ACSC 2026 qualifiers. You will know, since you have filled out a form and received a role on the ACSC Discord server.
The ACSC finale is a team competition. Sharing solutions, information or other content with other teams or people not involved in the finals while the competition is running is prohibited. The use of solutions created by other individuals or groups can lead to disqualification.
The enforcement of the rules can be supported by watchdogs that will be present during the competition.
AI Usage#
The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools is strictly prohibited during the ACSC 2026 Finale. While we understand that it is not possible to avoid AI results such as search engine results, the use of AI tools to generate solutions, hints, or any other content related to the competition is not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to, tools like ChatGPT, Claude Code, and especially disallows any agentic AI.
Classical code or terminal command auto-completion (non-LLM based) is allowed, but all active LLM based interactions will be investigated and can lead up to disqualification.
We want to find Austria’s best hackers. We do not care about Austria’s best prompters. Let’s revel together in the shared hobby of actually understanding the problems :)
Screen Recording#
To be able to give everyone a fair and level playing field, we ask you to provide a 1FPS screen recording for the entirety of the competition of all screens available to you. We will provide you with an upload link and will treat all files submitted with the highest form of confidentiality. Strict access limit to the head organizers, only viewing them in case there is a dispute or suspected foul play, and deleting them as soon as the scoring has completed.
We recommend setting up OBS according to the guide in screen recording. If you have any issues, please contact the organizers via a ticket. This is especially time sensitive during the competition, so please do not wait until the end of the competition to tell us, that your recording sadly failed.
It will be your responsibility to make sure you have a screen recording and that you submit all recordings for the duration of the competition. Failing to do so will mean we have to assume wrongdoing and can in serious cases lead up to disqualification.
Code of Conduct#
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, other team’s services, or any other party, is strictly prohibited.
- Deleting/overwriting/… flags or checker-relevant data (flag IDs, …) is not allowed. Your goal when attacking is to read the flags, not to affect the availability of the services.
- 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 while the competition is running is severely prohibited.
- 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.