The Global Cyber Skills Benchmark (GCSB) Capture The Flag (CTF) is HackTheBox's annual free, global competition designed exclusively for Businesses/Organizations and their teams.

Previously known as the Business CTF, it is one of our pillar events and provides a platform for corporate cybersecurity teams to test and benchmark their skills using custom-built challenges.

Signing up for the Global Cyber Skills Benchmark CTF differs significantly from the regular process of joining a standard HackTheBox CTF team.

While on regular CTFs, users may request to join a specific team; for the GCSB CTF, users must have an email address with a domain matching the one registered for the company they would like to join the event with.

To register a company or organization for the Global Cyber Skills Benchmark (GCSB) CTF, users must complete a specific approval process. Please follow these steps:

Once your company is approved, players can register and join your company's team, provided they have a business email with the correct matching domain.

Please note that only one email domain is allowed per registered company. If your company has multiple branches operating under different email domains, each branch must register as a separate organization and specify its country in the organization name.

To join an approved organization's team as a player, users must meet the following registration requirements:

All done! After following these steps, users should now be registered for the upcoming Business CTF!

Managing a team for the Global Cyber Skills Benchmark CTF involves specific backend mechanics that differ from standard HackTheBox teams, and will likely require the intervention of HackTheBox's Support Team.

Certificates for the event are given once the event is over. Here are a few pieces of information you might find relevant:

Here are a few common questions you may come across when signing up and/or trying to manage yourself or your company's users in the Global Cyber Skills Benchmark CTF.

No, university registrations are not accepted for the Global Cyber Skills Benchmark CTF. This applies to both students and faculty members. Universities are encouraged to participate in the dedicated HTB University CTF instead.

Unfortunately, not. You must have a business email provided by an organization to be able to join the CTF.

No. You are required to have a matching domain in order to join your own company in the Global Cyber Skills Benchmark CTF.

No, one single organization cannot have multiple email domains for the Global Cyber Skills Benchmark CTF. Therefore, if different branches from your Organization use a different domain for their email, they will be required to create a new organization specifying their branch. For example, if Hack The Box already exists, but you want to play as Hack The Box - UK, you'll need to register the UK branch as a new company and wait for approval.

You cannot manually leave a dormant team. You must contact HackTheBox Support, and our team will manually remove you from the team and the event.

No, because GCSB CTF teams are dormant teams, they do not utilize a "captain" role in the same way that regular HackTheBox teams do. All team members operate without the specific captain designation.

The event is officially scheduled to take place on May 15, 2026.

If your company or someone within your company has played in previous years, the approval is instant, as companies already registered in our database don't need to go through the approval process one more time.

If your company is completely new to our database, HackTheBox staff must process the registration manually. This manual review process may take up to one full business day.

Each company is permitted to participate with a maximum of one team per country or region. Alternatively, companies can choose to participate as a single team representing all of their global branches. Failure to abide by this restriction will result in immediate disqualification from the competition.

To keep the competition fair for everyone, teams must consist of a minimum of 1 player and a maximum of 30 players. You are welcome to play as an individual. Attempts to bypass the team size limit will result in disqualification from the competition.

Yes, you can opt to play anonymously. Your company must be formally registered with us to participate, but you can name your actual playing team whatever you would like.

The Scoreboard will display your Team name, not your Company name. If you choose an unrelated Team name, only HackTheBox will know which company you represent, and we will never share that information without your consent.

Continuing Professional Education (CPEs) credits will be allocated within 30 days after the competition ends. Because the event takes place on May 15, 2026, eligible players will receive their credits by June 14, 2026. HackTheBox will reach out directly to all members who successfully fill out the (ISC)2 fields to distribute these credits.

Certificates are generated automatically after the competition concludes. You will be able to download your certificate directly through the HackTheBox CTF Platform.

To download your certificate, please do the following:

You can contact the HackTheBox Support team using either of these two methods:

And that's it! This article should have covered all you will need to know in order to participate and claim rewards for participating in this year's Business CTF!

We look forward to seeing you participating in the event! Good luck, have fun, and Happy Hacking!