Nation's top young white-hat hackers to gather in Busan

Young white-hat hackers from across South Korea will compete for the title of top security talent in the maritime capital of Busan. The Busan IT Industry Promotion Agency said Tuesday that the finals of "2026 HACKSIUM Busan" will be held Friday and Saturday. The event will take place at the Piac Art Hall, a multipurpose cultural space in Yeongdo-gu, Busan. It is hosted by the Ministry of Science and ICT, Busan Metropolitan City and the Korea Internet & Security Agency, and organized by the Busan IT Industry Promotion Agency.

Now in its second year, the competition drew 374 participants across 97 teams from universities and graduate schools nationwide for a fierce preliminary round. In August's online qualifiers, contestants tackled problems across five categories — web, forensics, reverse engineering, cryptography and system hacking — with the top 20 teams advancing to the finals.

They will be joined by five teams that earned seed slots after placing in "SECTOR," a hacking competition for the southeastern region hosted by Gyeongnam Technopark in July. In all, 25 teams and 100 participants advanced to the finals.

Ten teams from the Busan-Ulsan-Gyeongnam region advanced to the finals, accounting for 40 percent of the field. The results suggest that regional efforts to cultivate information security talent are translating into competitiveness at the national level.

The finals will be staged against a backdrop of mock infrastructure modeled on the region's signature industries — shipbuilding, ports, manufacturing and logistics. Moving beyond simple problem-solving, the event will adopt a "Live-Fire" format involving real-time attack-and-defense scenarios and source code patching, testing participants' crisis-response skills and their ability to analyze security breaches under conditions simulating an actual cyberthreat.

The top team will receive the Minister of Science and ICT Award along with 5 million won ($3,720). The runner-up team will receive the Busan Mayor's Award and 3 million won, while the third-place team will receive the KISA Director's Award and a 1 million won prize. Two teams will receive encouragement awards, each earning an award from the head of the regional promotion agency along with 500,000 won.