BlackOut Sector is a governed offensive cybersecurity competition. All operatives are bound by rigorous engagement boundaries, dynamic scoring calculations, and zero-tolerance fair-play enforcement.
Challenge point values are not static. To ensure realistic difficulty representation and reward early breakthroughs, BlackOut Sector implements real-time dynamic score decay with an absolute floor and first blood incentives.
Challenges launch with predetermined ceilings based on evaluated complexity: Easy (200-400), Medium (500-750), Hard (800-1000), Apex Insane (2000).
As more operatives submit successful flags, the challenge reward decreases for every solver, preventing trivial challenges from skewing the final podium.
No challenge will ever drop beneath 50% of its initial value, regardless of how many participants solve it, preserving baseline reward dignity.
The pioneer operative or duo to achieve first blood receives an immutable +10% bonus calculated on top of the initial un-decayed point ceiling.
Operatives may register either as Solo (₹49) or as a Duo Squad (₹79). Sharing credentials, creating puppet accounts, or collaborating between distinct squads is strictly prohibited. If two squads are detected sharing solve logic or flag hashes, both will be disqualified.
The competition portal, scoring backend, database, scoreboard, and Discord servers are strictly OUT OF BOUNDS. Exploitation attempts must be confined exclusively to designated challenge hostnames, container ports, and IP ranges provided in the challenge briefing.
Unless explicitly stated in an individual challenge prompt, all valid flags adhere to the standard casing: BLACKOUT{sample_flag_here}. Flags are strictly case-sensitive. Incorrect submissions do not penalize points but are logged in telemetry.
Do not perform automated high-volume Denial of Service (DoS/DDoS) attacks, directory fuzzing with massive dictionaries without rate-limiting, or automated flag submission brute-forcing. Automated rate limiting will block IPs exceeding 15 failed flag submissions per minute.
Publishing, broadcasting, leaking, or hinting towards challenge flags, decoded strings, decompiled passwords, or exploit payloads in public forums, social media, or shared chat channels before the official competition conclusion will result in immediate disqualification and permanent blacklist.
Participants are completely free to utilize industry-standard penetration testing, decompilation, and debugging suites (e.g. Burp Suite, Wireshark, Ghidra, IDA Free, pwntools, radare2, Volatility, nmap, sqlmap, cyberchef). Custom scripts are encouraged.
If an operative discovers an unresponsive challenge container, broken networking route, or suspected infrastructural glitch, submit a private ticket via the official CodexSec Discord channel. Do not post bug details in general chats. Organizers will reset instances immediately.
Community writeups are celebrated and rewarded, but must not be published publicly until 48 hours following the event finale (October 21, 2026). This ensures the adjudication committee completes anti-cheat heuristic verification and prize audits.
CodexSec deploys automated behavioral telemetry to cross-reference solve timestamps, session IP concurrency, rapid cross-domain flag submission cascades, and submission diffs. Suspected anomalies will prompt a request for proof-of-work notes or local exploit scripts.
The apex industrial SCADA challenge runs persistently throughout the entire 50-hour event duration (17 Oct 10:00 AM – 19 Oct 12:00 PM IST). No hints will ever be provided for this challenge. First blood claims an exclusive Hall of Fame distinction, and successful exploits are subjected to immediate code audit.
In the event that two or more operatives finish with identical total points, the tie is broken strictly by timestamp priority: the participant who reached the score earliest (recorded by their final valid solve submission timestamp) claims the higher ranking.
You are now briefed on rules, decay mechanics, and engagement boundaries. Confirm your handle and prepare for 50 hours of tactical combat.