According to Yonhap, South Korea's science ministry said an international hacking defense competition was held in southern Seoul this week, with 20 teams from eight countries competing in the main round of CODEGATE 2026 over the past two days since Thursday. The ministry said 3,333 participants from 88 countries joined the online preliminaries for this year's contest, which marked its 18th year, and that an artificial intelligence hacker co-developed by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the event organizers took part for the first time. The competition was held alongside a cybersecurity conference that featured speakers including Michael Gronager, co-founder of Chainalysis.