2026 - WE WON SECCON CTF FINALS 2026 IN JAPAN 🇯🇵🏆

Last weekend, 4 Kalmarunionen members travelled to Japan to play the SECCON CTF Final — a competition we qualified for last year together with 8 other teams.

We won the finals - but we were seconds from not taking home the gold. Last year we finished #2 in the world on CTFtime.org, just behind the Chinese team r3kapig who had an impressive season. This SECCON final felt like last season compressed into a 48 hour sprint, only with the roles reversed. We didn’t pull ahead of r3kapig until right before the bell rang — that’s how close the race was.

Huge shoutout to the four who brought this one home: Adam Blatchley Hansen, Astrid Bek, Nikodem Rabuliński, Alexander Skovsende — great work as always. 💪

This years #CTF season is also going to be interesting to follow. Like many other parts of society, AI/LLMs (OpenAI/Anthropic/XBOW) are starting to shift the dynamics. We’re watching the development closely and figuring out how to adapt - so CTFs stay what they should be: a place where people learn, have fun, and compete. Transitions come with growing pains… and we’ll see where we land 🙂

This was the first big event of the 2026 season for us - but now the season really begins. Here’s what’s coming up in March:

• M0lecon CTF Finals in Turin 🇮🇹 (m0lecon.it - Politecnico di Torino)
• KalmarCTF 2026: March 27 - 29 - if you haven’t marked it yet, do it now 🙂

A sincere thank you to our sponsors and partners who make this possible through their continued support of learning, meetups, and international competition: Industriens Fond, JN Data, Dubex - Part of Conscia & ICSRange.

If you would like to support #Kalmarunionen, reach out to Rolf Lunn or Morten Eskildsen on LinkedIn, or contact us at sponsor@kalmarunionen.dk.