Schedule of 2nd NCO (2026)
7 March NCO Online Prelims Contest 0900 to 1300
28 March NCO Final Contest 0900 to 1400
NCO Online Prelims Contest Details
Date: 7 March 2026
Session: 9 AM - 1 PM (SGT)
Duration: 4 hours
Format: Jeopardy-style CTF challenges
Prelim Rules/Format
  • No unrestricted internet access, No AI. An internal network will be set up which students will connect via VPN.
  • Certain whitelisted websites and documentation (e.g., Python, SageMath) will be provided and hosted during prelims that students may access.
  • Internet access is required throughout the contest
NCO Final Contest Details
Date: 28 Mar 2026
Session: 9 AM - 2 PM (SGT)
Venue: MPSH COM3
Overview
  • The NCO 2026 Finals will be held on-site at NUS COM3 Multipurpose Hall (MPH) on 28th March, from 0800hrs to 1800hrs.
  • The event will take place over 10 hours, with a competition period of 5 hours.
  • Selected students from NCO 2026 Qualifiers will participate in the Finals.
Challenge Format
  • NCO 2026 Finals will be a 5 hour long Jeopardy style Capture the Flag (CTF) competition.
  • The competition will be open-internet. Contestants are to bring their own software. Use of AI / LLMs are not allowed.
  • Following the ICO 2026 Competition Format (last updated: 26th Feb 2026), the Finals will revolve around 5 main tasks, each containing 3 challenges of varying difficulty — a total of 15 challenges.
  • Challenges are evenly distributed across five categories: Cryptography, Reverse Engineering, Web Exploitation, Binary Exploitation, and Forensics.
  • Contestants are expected to determine the category each subtask / challenge belongs to.
  • Each subtask / challenge is standalone — knowledge of other subtasks in the same task is not required.
  • Example: A task revolving around Network Blue-Teaming may involve a forensics challenge, a reverse engineering challenge, and a cryptography challenge as sub-tasks, each with distinct challenge files (e.g. the forensics subtask would contain log data, the reverse engineering subtask would contain the extracted binary).
Rules
  • Contestants are NOT ALLOWED to attack or enumerate competition infrastructure or software used by the NCO Organising Team.
  • There is a complete and total ban on AI tools. The following are strictly prohibited:
    • Local LLMs (e.g. Qwen3, CodeLlama)
    • AI Chatbots (e.g. ChatGPT, Google Gemini)
    • Automated Code Agents (e.g. Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, Gemini CLI)
    • Copilots / AI Assisted Code Completion (e.g. Github Copilot, VSCode Copilot)
    • Model Context Protocol (MCP) Tools (e.g. GhidraMCP, IDA MCP)
    • Any other LLM or Generative AI integration into external tools
  • Search engines (e.g. Google, Bing) may generate AI Overviews — contestants are not to expand AI Overview results or prompt further in AI Mode.
  • Contestants will be allowed to use AEGIS, a custom in-house AI Proxy tool developed by NUS, which provides limited LLM access. AEGIS will be released shortly after NCO 2026 Prelims.
Schedule
  • 0800 – 0900 — Registration and Set-Up
  • 0900 – 1400 — NCO 2026 Finals Competition (Snacks provided during competition)
  • 1400 – 1500 — Lunch
  • 1500 – 1530 — Sponsors Booth Interaction
  • 1530 – 1630 — Sponsors Talk
  • 1630 – 1730 — NCO 2026 Finals Challenge Walkthrough & Q&A
  • 1730 – 1800 — Prize Presentation
Awards
  • NCO 2026 Finals is an individual event. All contestants will receive an E-Certificate of participation.
  • Gold Medal: Top 1/12 of participants
  • Silver Medal: Top 1/6 of participants (excluding Gold medallists)
  • Bronze Medal: Top 1/4 of participants (excluding Gold and Silver medallists)
  • The top 8 students will be drafted into the ICO 2026 National Team and receive further training by CSIT (Centre for Strategic Infocomm Technologies).
  • The top 4 will be confirmed team members; 5th to 8th place will serve as backups (priority descending from 5th).
Prerequisite/Knowledge Requirements

This syllabus for the National Cybersecurity Olympiad (NCO) Prelims 2026 serves the following purposes:

  • It specifies a set of required prerequisite knowledge.
  • It serves as a set of guidelines to determine the suitability of a challenge for the NCO Prelims 2026. Challenges that contestants may encounter during the NCO Prelims 2026 will be within the scope of the topics and concepts stated in this syllabus.
  • Schools should be able to prepare their students for the NCO Prelims 2026 by following the content of the syllabus.

In line with the traditional categories encountered in cybersecurity competitions, such as Capture The Flag (CTF) competitions, we classify a selection of topics into five main categories:

  • Binary Exploitation (Pwn)
  • Cryptography
  • Forensics
  • Web Exploitation
  • Reverse Engineering

The set of topics presented aims to be as comprehensive as possible but may not be exhaustive. Further details on topics, subtopics and concepts will be released in a future update.

System Requirements, Permitted Materials and Software

General Requirements

  • Each contestant should have access to a device that is able to access the internet.
  • The contestant must have local administrative access on this device and be able to install and run external programs.
  • The contestant must have sufficient free storage space and memory for a smooth competitive experience (recommendation: minimum 80GB of free space, 8GB of RAM)
  • During the NCO 2026 Prelims, Contestants will not be able to access the internet beyond the contest website and whitelisted documentation. As such, Contestants are expected to download and configure any software they deem necessary for the competition prior to the competition itself.
  • Furthermore, Contestants will be allowed to access offline materials, both in softcopy and hardcopy forms e.g. saved PDFs, template scripts, printed notes.

Browser Requirements

A web browser is required to access the contest platform. Supported browsers include (but not limited to):

  • Google Chrome
  • Firefox 80+
  • Opera
  • Microsoft Edge 17+

Supported Operating Systems

Contestants are reminded that the following Operating Systems are officially supported:

  • Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2
  • Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Contestants may use other Operating Systems, however the NCO 2026 Organising Team cannot provide any guarantees that all software and challenges will run smoothly on other systems. It is heavily recommended that you use a 64-bit x86 system. Modern Mac systems (aarch64 Apple Silicon devices) may not be supported. Additionally, Contestants are discouraged from running Dual Booted systems. Contestants will not be allowed to remotely connect to/mirror an external server/device as your playing environment.

Required Software/Packages

Beyond OBS screen recording and OpenVPN software, The NCO 2026 Organising Team will not impose any required software for the competition. However, it is heavily recommended that all contestants have the following installed to be able to interact with some of the challenges:

  • Python 3.12+
  • Docker
  • Netcat
  • An IDE or text editor e.g. Visual Studio Code

In the syllabus section, a list of additional recommended tools and software has been included as well (see detailed syllabus).

AI Rules

As there is a complete and total ban on Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools for NCO 2026 Prelims, the following software are strictly prohibited:

  • Local Large Language Models (LLMs) e.g. Qwen3, CodeLlama
  • AI Chatbots e.g. ChatGPT, Google Gemini
  • Automated Code Agents e.g. Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, Gemini CLI
  • Copilots/AI Assisted Code Completion e.g. Github Copilot, VSCode Copilot
  • Model Context Protocol (MCP) Tools e.g. GhidraMCP, IDA MCP
  • Any other LLM or Generative AI integration into external tools

In general, tools that leverage Generative AI i.e. LLMs, Diffusion Models, will be banned. The NCO 2026 Organising Team acknowledges there exists software that leverages AI as part of its processing workflow and does not fully automate solving of challenges e.g. Pylingual, which uses NLP to decompile compiled Python. Such software ought to be permitted, but it presents an ambiguous grey area where there may or may not be an extreme unfair competitive advantage.

A non-exhaustive list of examples for software or tools which may be permitted includes:

  • Premium/paid versions of software which provides features which may aid in certain tasks e.g. paid decompilers providing different Intermediate Representation levels
  • Boilerplate or template scripts created before the contest
  • Fuzzers or other bruteforcing tools that do not leverage Generative AI

It is recommended that a Contestant utilises alternative tools that do not require AI to avoid ambiguity in AI use. As the NCO 2026 Organising Team does not wish to completely restrict the tools a Contestant may use, if a Contestant is unsure as to whether a specific tool is permitted, Proctors are to compile such queries and contact the NCO 2026 Organising Team (dcsbox42@nus.edu.sg). Otherwise, in the event of a screen recording review or later investigation, the Contestant may be disqualified for using AI powered tools that have not been approved.

As internet access is restricted during the contest, Contestants are additionally reminded to ensure their tools and software are able to be used offline. Exceptions may be made for certain software (primarily those outlined in the recommended software section) but the NCO 2026 Organising Team provides no guarantees in this regard.

Syllabus

The detailed syllabus can be found here.

General Prerequisites

Contestants should know and understand the basic structure and operation of a computer (CPU, memory, I/O). They are expected to be able to use a standard computer with a graphical user interface, its operating system with supporting applications, and the provided program development tools for the purpose of solving the competition's challenges.

  1. Python Programming
  2. C Programming
  3. The GNU/Linux Operating System

Binary Exploitation

Contestants should know and understand the operation of Linux executable files (ELF) and their common vulnerabilities. They are expected to be familiar with common stack and heap primitives, as well as how to exploit them. Students are to know how to spot vulnerabilities in binaries and convert given primitives to arbitrary code execution.

  1. Binary Fundamentals
  2. Basic Exploitation Techniques
  3. The GNU C Library (glibc) and Stack Exploitation
  4. Dynamic Allocator Misuse and Heap Exploitation

Cryptography

Contestants should be familiar with common cryptosystems, as well as known attacks and algorithms associated with them, including cases where the same attacks are applied to other systems. Students are to acquaint themselves with post-quantum cryptography as well.

  1. Mathematical Background
  2. Asymmetric Cryptography
  3. Symmetric Cryptography
  4. Post Quantum Cryptography
  5. Hash Functions and Other Cryptosystems

Forensics

Contestants should know and understand how to extract information from data files and forensics images and interpret and analyse obtained information. Knowledge in analysing network protocols and memory dumps is also necessary.

  1. File Formats, Metadata, Steganography
  2. Disk Images
  3. Networking
  4. Memory Dumps

Reverse Engineering

Contestants should know and understand how common executables (e.g. PE32+, ELF) operate. They are expected to be familiar with decompilation and debugging as well as relevant techniques and skills to interpret and reverse engineer binaries and algorithms.

  1. Instruction Architectures, Computer Organisation and Executable Formats
  2. Code and Control Flow Obfuscation
  3. Static Analysis Techniques
  4. Dynamic Analysis Techniques
  5. Symbolic Execution and Satisfiability
  6. Emulation and Virtualisation

Web Exploitation

Contestants should know and understand the common vulnerabilities present in web applications. They are expected to be familiar with exploiting both client and server-side vulnerabilities.

  1. Basic Networking
  2. Cross-Site Scripting Attacks (XSS)
  3. Database Injection Attacks
  4. Server Side Vulnerabilities
Past Challenges

Past challenges can be downloaded from here.

Training Materials

Links to access NCL/NUS training materials:

Participants can refer to the NCL online training materials (pre-recorded basic training videos below), covering the following topics:

Latest Training Materials:

Basic Topics:

Additional Advanced Topics:

Online platforms such as TryHackMe, picoCTF, and Hack The Box can be used as demos in the training program. Participants can use these platforms to learn and practice on the real CTF environment.

Participants can refer to any other relevant training resources (not limited to NCL materials).

Other References:

Disclaimer: All cited sources on this page, except for the course videos, belong to their respective owners, and while the site may include third-party links for educational purposes, we do not own, monitor, or take responsibility for these external resources or any interactions with third-party providers.

Committee

Main Organisers: Tan Sun Teck; Kee Zhen Xian

Co-Organiser: Nitya Lakshmanan

Technical Chair: Zhu YongZe

Scientific Chair: Kee Zhen Xian

Scientific Vice-Chair: Lim Kang Wei David

Secretary: Justin Lim

Technical Committee

The NCO Technical Committee is tasked with the preparation and maintenance of contest infrastructure and configuring of contest problems for the NCO. The following are current members of the NCO Technical Committee:

  • Zhu YongZe (Chairman, Technical Committee)
  • Anselm Pius Long (Lead Developer)
  • Teo Chuan Lai
  • Ow Jun Duan
  • Ng Yu Hao Benedict
  • Seow Cheng Si

Scientific Committee

The NCO Scientific Committee is tasked with the setting, preparation, and selection of problems for all contests of the NCO. The following are current members of the NCO Scientific Committee:

  • Kee Zhen Xian (Chairman, Scientific Committee)
  • Lim Kang Wei David (Vice-Chairman, Scientific Committee)
  • Justin Lim (Secretary)
  • Emilia Ventura (Playtest Lead)
  • Yeo Beng Jun Vincent
  • Yap Yuan Xi
  • Jaron Ng
  • Kieran Chai
  • Joey Tang
  • Kuai Yi Zhuang, Ezann