Integris places top 10 in Huntress global cybersecurity competition

Integris placed sixth out of more than 1,600 teams in the 2026 Huntress Capture the Flag competition, bringing together cybersecurity talent from across Integris and First Focus.

The achievement marks an exciting milestone following Integris’ acquisition of First Focus earlier this year. With cybersecurity expertise spanning the United States, Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines, the combined team demonstrated the strength of bringing together talented security professionals from across the organization.

First Focus brought valuable experience to this year’s competition, having participated and placed previously. Building on that success, the expanded Integris team climbed to sixth place in 2026.

Cybersecurity is becoming harder to recognise

A suspicious email attachment is one thing. An attacker using a legitimate account or a trusted IT tool is much harder to distinguish from normal business activity.

Attackers can abuse remote management tools, use compromised identities to access systems, or manipulate email accounts to hide activity and carry out fraud. AI is also changing how social engineering is created and delivered, making some attempts more convincing and easier to scale.

For the people protecting a business, the challenge is not simply collecting alerts. It is recognising what is unusual, connecting the evidence and deciding what needs to happen next.

A login, a script and a file download may each appear harmless on their own. Understanding what they mean together takes investigation, experience and judgement. When something is missed or a response takes too long, the consequences can extend beyond IT to interrupted operations, exposed information and financial loss.

That makes the capability of your cybersecurity partner increasingly important. The tools they use matter, but so do the people behind them: their ability to investigate unfamiliar problems, adapt their approach and keep learning as threats change.

Why Huntress runs Capture the Flag

Huntress runs its Capture the Flag competition each October as part of Cybersecurity Awareness Month. It gives participants a practical way to build their skills, solve unfamiliar problems and learn alongside the wider security community.

A Capture the Flag competition presents a series of technical challenges. Participants investigate each scenario to find a hidden answer, known as a “flag”. Correct submissions earn points and contribute to a team’s position on the leaderboard.

Huntress describes challenges across areas such as malware analysis, incident response and threat hunting. They give participants a chance to practise the kinds of analytical skills security teams use when examining suspicious activity. Learn more about Huntress CTF.

A new challenge: AI and human judgement

This year, Huntress introduced its AI Arena. Participants were strongly encouraged, though not required, to use AI as part of their approach, with an environment and tokens provided for the competition.

That reflects an important shift for the security industry. AI can help people investigate information and explore possible answers more quickly. But a plausible answer still needs to be tested. Security professionals need to understand the evidence, challenge assumptions and use their judgement to decide what is actually happening.

For our team, the competition was an opportunity to apply those skills to unfamiliar challenges and learn from colleagues across First Focus and Integris.

Building on a strong result

The expanded Integris team finished sixth in 2026. That follows another strong performance last year, when First Focus placed 27th and reported a top-0.4% finish.

Congratulations to everyone across the Integris team who contributed, and thank you to Huntress for creating an opportunity for the security community to learn together.

What this means for your business

No competition result, on its own, tells you everything about a cybersecurity provider. Your partner’s operating processes, service delivery and experience protecting clients matter too.

But it is reasonable to ask how the people protecting your business keep their skills current, how they investigate unusual activity and what happens when they identify a genuine threat.

For us, Huntress CTF is one way to practise those skills, learn from new challenges and share that knowledge across the team. As cyber threats continue to evolve, that commitment to learning needs to continue too.

If you’re reviewing your cybersecurity arrangements and would like to discuss those questions, talk to our team.