SK Shieldus said on July 27 its white-hacker group EQST (Experts, Qualified Security Team) finished runner-up in the general CTF division at the international hacking defence contest CODEGATE 2026 hosted by the Ministry of Science and ICT.

This year’s CODEGATE competition was held on July 23 and 24 at COEX in Seoul’s Gangnam district. The CTF (Capture The Flag), which draws white hackers from around the world, was split into a general division (team event) and a junior division (individual event).

In the general-division finals, 20 teams from eight countries advanced and competed for 24 hours to solve problems across fields including AI, web, systems, reversing, cryptography and blockchain.

EQST formed a joint team to enter the general division and finished second after solving problems across multiple fields, SK Shieldus said. EQST is a white-hacker organisation of about 200 people that conducts penetration testing, vulnerability research, red team operations and AI security research.

Lee Dong-joo (이동주), a senior member of the EQST Lab, said, “Regularly reviewing the latest vulnerabilities and security research, and the experience I built doing related work at the company, helped a lot in this competition.” He added, “Over 24 hours, we quickly shared information each of us found and collaborated by leveraging each other’s strengths, which led to the good result of finishing runner-up.”

An SK Shieldus official said, “In security, the process of continuously researching and verifying real-world environments is important.” The official added, “We will continue to actively support EQST’s research activities and keep reflecting accumulated capabilities in advancing customer services.”