Fifty hackers, one boat
Most capture the flag competitions happen in a conference hall. Ours happened at sea. On 8 July we crossed from Málaga to Melilla with around 50 cybersecurity professionals on board, on our way to the Cyber Fight Club Round 2. A capture the flag aka CTF, for anyone outside the scene, is a hacking competition where teams race to break, exploit and outsmart a set of challenges. This CTF was co-organised by Hack in Hire and RootedCON, and this time the arena was a boat in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. The challenges were pure pentest with no IA, with no internet... and everything ran on our technical assessment platform, the same engine we use to vet candidates. So the challenge doubled as a live stress test:
- Rusadir ferry on it's way from Málaga to Melilla
around 50 of the sharpest people in the country hammering the platform for hours, at sea, with everything on the line. It's the kind of test you cannot fake in a demo. Two teams came out on top. Both won tickets and training for the next edition of RootedCON Madrid 2027, which is about the best prize you can hand a hacker who takes their craft seriously. Why run it on a boat? Because the standard technical interview is dull, and talent this good deserves better than a webcam and a whiteboard question. We wanted to see how the platform, and the people, held up in a setting nobody could treat as routine. Both did. For candidates: this is the bar we are building toward. A technical assessment that is sharp, fair and actually worth your time, whether you are competing for a title or applying for a role. Upload your CV and we will match you with roles that fit your skills, not just your keywords. For companies: this is how we vet. When a shortlist reaches you, the people on it have solved real problems under real pressure, not ticked boxes. In cybersecurity, that is the difference between a stack of CVs and a shortlist you can trust.
- Hack in Hire team explaining the challenges CTF Players