New Delhi, 21 October 2026: After a gruelling two-stage elimination that tested more than 300 cyber warriors against realistic attack scenarios, the CRACCON ‘26 Cyber War has narrowed the field to six teams. National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU), Delhi Campus, has emerged as the standout performer, with four of its teams in the final six. The other two finalists are from Poornima University, Jaipur, and IIT Roorkee.
The six finalists will now face off in the third and final stage, competing live on the cyber range for the top of the leaderboard at CRACCON ‘26, on 24–25 October 2026 at PHDCCI, New Delhi.
The competition opened with more than 300 participants in Stage 1. Only 20 teams made it through to Stage 2, where the contest moved well beyond a conventional capture-the-flag event. Teams faced an industry-aligned scenario modelled on real-world attacks, and had to fight on both sides of it: attacking like an adversary, defending like a security operations team and investigating like incident responders, all within the same mission.
This is exactly the kind of challenge the next generation of defenders will face on the job. Real-world attackers do not stop at one vulnerability. They break in, dig in and move quietly through networks. Stopping them takes people who can think like the attacker and act fast as the defender. Each team also had to submit detailed findings and a full incident response report, showing that a good cyber professional must also communicate clearly under pressure.
As India builds the skilled cyber workforce it needs to secure its digital future, competitions like the CRACCON ‘26 Cyber War offer young talent a proving ground. Here they can test themselves against real-world threats, learn from the best and rise to the challenge. NFSU Delhi Campus’s four teams in the final six, from a nationwide field of more than 300, show that this talent is ready to step up.
The live final will be one of the highlights of CRACCON ‘26. The conference programme also includes expert talks, panel discussions, hands-on workshops, certified trainings and hacking villages.
About CRACCON
CRACCON is the flagship cybersecurity conference of CRAC Learning, an Indian education and community initiative. It brings together professionals, researchers, industry leaders and government officials for talks, panels, workshops and training, covering everything from AI-powered security and digital forensics to cyber-physical systems. The audience includes CISOs, security researchers, SOC and CSIRT teams, and cloud and application security professionals. By bringing industry, academia and government together on one platform, CRACCON helps build the skills and partnerships India needs to stay ahead of evolving cyber threats.
CRACCON ‘26 is organised with Defhawk as Technology Partner
