Global Cyber Skills Benchmark 2026: 5 Reasons Your Team Must Join

May 15, 2026 is the date Task Force Nightfall goes live. In a world where influence is bought through the control of dependency, your team’s ability to maintain national resilience is the only metric that matters.

The Global Cyber Skills Benchmark (GCSB) 2026 is a free, large-scale CTF event designed for corporate teams to sharpen their skills and measure their readiness against a global field of peers. This moves beyond traditional simulations, plunging participants into an immersive nation-state warfare scenario. As part of a joint national mission cell, your team will be tasked with tracking and neutralizing rival state APT units that have embedded themselves within our shared systems—virtualization stacks, supplier portals, and identity providers.

5 Reasons Your Team Needs to Join Project Nightfall

1. Try Hack The Box for free!

Everyone loves a high-value opportunity, especially when it brings plenty of amazing benefits. GCSB 2026 is completely free to enter for corporate teams (up to 30 players), allowing you to give our platform a test run and witness the opportunities it provides to upskill your unit as one. It’d be rude not to!

2. Access premium hacking content

Carefully created by our expert team, you’ll have access to exclusive content featuring the latest real-world hacking techniques. With rival APT units living inside virtualization stacks and supplier portals, how can you keep up to date to protect your organization’s infrastructure? We develop realistic scenarios ensuring your team is well-versed in the tactics needed for National Resilience and Sovereignty.

3. Boost employee engagement

We’ve found that more than 70% of managers view team events like CTFs as a viable way to boost employee engagement. What’s more, 68% of security team members rated “opportunities to learn skills” as the most successful way of staying engaged at work. The Project Nightfall interactive storyline makes this gamified benchmark more engaging than ever, leaving static training as a thing of the past.

4. Challenge yourself against the biggest cybersecurity teams in the world

The GCSB is globally recognized, meaning some of the biggest companies in the world—including Fortune 100 firms—participate. But what makes it so exciting is that there’s no barrier to entry; smaller companies can compete against global giants, making victory even sweeter if you manage to beat their security team.

5. Win amazing prizes and CPEs

We don’t shy away when it comes to rewarding our winners. With a Maximum Prize Value of $38,000, the top three teams will be rewarded with:

• 1st Place ($20,000 Value): The Secret HTB Trophy, 3 months of Academy for Business (including AI Red Teaming certification), 3 months of Dedicated Labs, 5,000 CTF credits, and a $100 swag card per player.

• 2nd Place ($12,000 Value): 3 months of Academy for Business (including AI Red Teaming certification), 3 months of Dedicated Labs, and a $50 swag card per player.

• 3rd Place ($6,000 Value): 3 months of Dedicated Labs and a $25 swag card per player.

CPE Credits: We also offer CPE credits to participants who meet the performance threshold, ensuring your professional growth continues.

Prepare for the Future by Learning from the Past

Before you face the complexities of Project Nightfall, see how the global security community performed last year. The Global Cyber Skills Benchmark Report 2025 provides a deep dive into industry-specific skill gaps, emerging vulnerability trends, and the benchmarks your peers set just 12 months ago. Use these insights to identify your team's potential exposure areas before the first 2026 challenge goes live.

Download the 2025 Global Cyber Skills Benchmark Report

Task Force Nightfall activates May 15, 2026, at 13:00 UTC. When the trust in your identity providers cracks, will your team know how to maintain control?

Sign up your team for free