Hacker News Opens Cybersecurity Stars Awards 2026 Submissions
The Hacker News (THN) has officially opened the call for entries for the Cybersecurity Stars Awards 2026, an initiative designed to shine a spotlight on the behind‑the‑scenes work that keeps the digital ecosystem resilient. Now in its inaugural year, the program will honor individuals, teams, and organizations that have delivered groundbreaking research, decisive incident handling, or innovative defensive technologies that often go unnoticed amid the daily flood of breach headlines. Submissions will be accepted through the dedicated portal at hackmyip.com/awards2026 until March 31, 2026.
The 2026 edition features eight award categories, each tied to a core technical discipline: Best Zero‑Day Discovery, Outstanding Ransomware Mitigation, Top Supply‑Chain Security Initiative, Leading Cloud‑Security Architecture, Pioneering AI‑Security Research, Excellence in Threat‑Intelligence Dissemination, Robust Bug‑Bounty Program of the Year, and Elite Incident‑Response Team. Each category requires a detailed submission packet that includes technical proof‑of‑concept reports, impact metrics (e.g., number of vulnerabilities patched, reduction in dwell time, or mitigation of a live ransomware campaign), and peer endorsements. Judges such as Maya Patel, Chief Security Officer at SecureWorks, James O’Brien, Senior Threat Analyst at CrowdStrike, and Dmitri Volkov, Editor‑in‑Chief at THN, will evaluate entries based on innovation, real‑world impact, and reproducibility of the presented work.
To be considered, applicants must provide documented evidence of their contributions—hash values of malware samples, CVE identifiers, MITRE ATT&CK mapping, and, where permissible, anonymized incident logs that illustrate the tactical response timeline. The awards committee stresses that submissions should highlight not only the technical merit of the work but also its broader implications for the security community, such as improvements to detection rules, patch rollout speed, or public‑private collaboration that thwarted a nation‑state intrusion. All materials must be submitted in PDF or Markdown format via the secure upload interface, with optional video demonstrations limited to five minutes.
Winners will be announced at the virtual Cybersecurity Stars Summit on May 15, 2026, where they will receive a commemorative plaque, a feature article in The Hacker News, and a $5,000 donation to a charity of their choice. The Hacker News encourages researchers, SOC analysts, red‑teamers, and C‑suite leaders alike to showcase the quiet victories that keep organizations safe and to inspire the next generation of cybersecurity professionals.