Embedded Security Challenge
ESC is an educational, research-oriented tournament aimed at hacking into the hardware of embedded systems. First run in 2008, it is the oldest hardware security competition in the world, and 2026 represents ESC's 19-year anniversary. ESC 2026 will be held in multiple regions (US-Canada, Europe, and India), with the finals taking place in New York, Grenoble and Kanpur.
This year, we are unleashing the power of AI: participants are encouraged to leverage deep learning and Large Language Models to automate attacks, and design intelligent defenses in a new AI-driven computing era. This year's challenge focuses on securing a modern Smart Home Edge Gateway implemented on the popular ESP32 platform. Participants will analyze and secure an embedded firmware that manages multiple communication interfaces and physical access control subsystems.
The 2026 competition comprises a qualification phase and a final phase, where finalist teams receive hardware kits to learn about hardware attacks in a controlled and safe environment using an ESP32 development board.
Past ESC competitions have focused on data exfiltration attacks against IoT devices, hacking the firmware of a RISC-V Wi-Fi access point and executing acoustic side channel on 3D printing devices.
Embedded Security Challenge 2026
Students of all university levels are invited to compete. Each team must have a team leader and up to 3 additional team members (a total of 4 participants per team). Each team leader is responsible for coordinating with other members of their team and will be the point of contact for the entire team. Each team should also have a university faculty advisor.
The team leaders need to register their team members and faculty advisor electronically at https://hotcrp.engineering.nyu.edu/, using their team name as the 'Submission Title'.
A detailed description of this year's ESC is available in the competition's GitHub page: https://github.com/TrustworthyComputing/csaw_esc_2026
Teams can register to compete using the following link: https://hotcrp.engineering.nyu.edu/
The ESC 2026 submission information is available here: https://github.com/TrustworthyComputing/csaw_esc_2026
