There are a number of youth security competitions out there that you may have heard of: CyberPatriot, CyberStart (FastTrack), PicoCTF etc... but what I've seen in now ten years of running these types of programs is that they all fail in one specific area: education.

They give you a competition and tell you to figure it out! This is great for the top 1 or 2 percent but misses most of the youth population. Hack a Bit provides targeted learning alongside focused hacking challenges. This stuff can be hard, but our team has the experience to teach this specific domain in a more effective manner. Anyone can be successful without any prior experience if they have the interest and put in the effort!

Interest and drive. The team has seen time and time again that a driven bright person will out perform talent. Hack a Bit is designed to be effective in the education space and if you show up with a winning attitude, you will win. Hack a Bit provides targeted learning alongside focused hacking challenges. This stuff can be hard, but our team has the experience to teach this specific domain in a more effective manner. Anyone can be successful without any prior experience if they have the interest and put in the effort!

Registration is $25 USD and ensures access to at least two rounds of competition with the possibility of advancement to finals depending on placement. Aside from the $5k USD prize pool, every competitor will receive the commemorative competition swag package for participating.

If you cannot afford the registration fee, please reach out to our team at [email protected] we will address your needs on a case-by-case basis to ensure that everyone who wants to compete is able to. Your registration fee as well as support from our partners allows us to develop focused education and excellent challenges for YOU! Therefore we ask that you only reach out if this really is a blocker for you, every dollar counts!

Capture the Flag (CTF) in cyber security is an exercise where "flags" are secretly hidden in purposefully-vulnerable programs or websites. Competitors steal flags either from other competitors (attack/defense-style CTFs) or from the organizers (jeopardy-style challenges).

Hack a bit is exclusively a jeopardy-style CTF but this may change in the future to aid in additional learning, likely in the finals round. For this year of competition the finals event is jeopardy-style.

Round 1: No pre-study required, 1 hour of login preparation, testing and feedback.

Round 2: 10-20 hours a week or more will ensure you are very competitive. This will scale up or down so you can either crush if you commit more time or just get a taste if you commit less. The point is that your commit is fundamentally responsible for the success of the competition.

Round 3: Qualified participants should expect to commit the weekend to hacking and attacking challenges as well as receiving cool gear from sponsors and interacting with industry partners.

Yes. You will need to provide proof of age if you qualify for the finals event and wish to participate. Competition staff require this proof in order to keep the competition fair and ensure that those who deserve prizes are awarded them.

If participants qualify for finals but do not play the next available participant will be offered the seat and will need to provide proof of age at that point in time.

Once the first round opens on 1 November 2022, you can start the test at any point in time.

Results will be emailed out within two weeks of the qualifier finishing. Selected qualifiers advancing to finals will be notified within one month of the finals event. Results will also be published to each competitor's dashboard.

Discord allows you to communicate with the competition team and the competition team to communicate with you. It also allows our industry partners to give out prizes and merch. In the finals event Discord will serve as a stage for our speakers and event staff to host everyone.