New Delhi, Delhi, 16th of August, 2026 : The National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT), under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India, launched CYBER KUSHTI 2026 on August 15, a national cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence (AI) hackathon designed to test and recognise human judgment in cybersecurity assessment. The hackathon was formally launched by Prof. (Dr.) M. M. Tripathi, Director General, NIELIT and Vice Chancellor, NIELIT Deemed to be University, as the official parallel technical track of the 3rd National Conference on Cyber Security, Digital Forensics and Intelligence (NCCDFI 2026). The competition is being conducted in collaboration with the Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC Foundation) under the National Security Database (NSD), with CERT-In as the Knowledge Partner. Registration for CYBER KUSHTI 2026 opened on August 15th, and will remain open until 10 September 2026. Participation is free and open to students and independent researchers in teams of three. A Hackathon Focused on Judgment, Not Just Detection Unlike conventional cybersecurity competitions that primarily focus on vulnerability discovery or Capture The Flag (CTF) challenges, CYBER KUSHTI 2026 is designed to assess the ability of participants to evaluate, prioritise and defend cybersecurity decisions. Each participating team will receive an identical and deliberately imperfect Security Assessment Package, comprising AI-generated findings, static analysis outputs, dependency and secrets scans, architecture documentation, source code and application logs. The package will contain false, duplicated and genuine findings, while some actual vulnerabilities will be deliberately omitted. Teams will be required to produce a corrected and prioritised security assessment and defend the decisions made. The competition will reward participants not only for identifying genuine issues but also for correctly rejecting false findings. Speaking on the occasion, Prof. (Dr.) M. M. Tripathi, Director General, NIELIT, said,“The most difficult part of security work has shifted.