At this year's Defcon, a fast-moving CTF and a last-minute challenge turned into a real-world product test and a first-place finish. We're proud to spotlight Sanaan — a computer‑science student, seasoned CTF competitor, and Adversary Wars champion at DEFCON 33. Sanaan and his team used Hacker Sidekick during the event and ended up securing number one.
A quick background
Sanaan's path into security was sparked by discovering an interest in the competitive side of the field - CTFs, and collegiate level events like CCDC, CPTC, and Cyber Force. At Defcon, a pivot from attending the conference to focusing on CTF competition paid off: Sanaan's team earned first place in Adversary Wars — and accepted a challenge from us to win a top‑two spot using Hacker Sidekick. They exceeded the ask and took the top spot.
Why Hacker Sidekick?
During a live demo, Sanaan compared Hacker Sidekick to Security Gemini and other models they use in his tooling stack (e.g., Claude, Cursor). He noted:
- Security Gemini automates many tasks effectively (e.g., SQLi automation, file analysis), but Hacker Sidekick provides stronger, security-focused guidance and avoids problematic refusals seen with general-purpose models.
Sanaan leaned on Hacker Sidekick for concise, actionable guidance during the event. Highlights from his usage included:
- Rapid, focused responses for binary reversing and reversing guidance — an area Sanaan noted Hacker Sidekick excels at compared to other LLMs.
- Minimal verbosity when a direct PoC or code snippet was needed, reducing the time to test and iterate.
Want to try it in your next competition?
- Compete with Hacker Sidekick: Turn it on, push it hard, and let it ride shotgun for your strategy.
- Win big: Take first overall at your CTF.
- Tell your story: Share how Hacker Sidekick helped you crack the toughest challenges—we love the gritty details.
- Collect your bounty: We'll confirm eligibility and pay out your bonus.
Contact [email protected] to let us know if you're planning to use Hacker Sidekick at a CTF, and have a chance at winning some cash!
Huge thank you to Sanaan for helping us gain insight into how we can continue to help the hacker community!
— The Hacker Sidekick Team