> SECURE_BY_DESIGN_AFRICA_MOVEMENT presents

237HACKFEST /2026

PROVE IT. from awareness to action
[ THU 5 NOV, 6:00 PM -> FRI 6 NOV, 6:00 PM . DOUALA, CAMEROON ]

> PHILOSOPHY

Not a conference where people sit and listen. A proving ground.

237HackFest is Central Africa’s flagship cybersecurity festival. A two-part, one-continuous-run experience where the community proves its skills through overnight CTF and a full day of talks, research, and industry engagement. Every programme element produces something demonstrable – no slideware.

> 24-HOUR RUN

One continuous 24 hours.

01 / 18:00 THU

Doors + Briefing

Registration, check-in, opening remarks.

02 / 19:00 THU

CTF Night

Phase 1 Blue + Phase 2 Red + HTB Groups.

03 / 05:30 FRI

Battle Ground

Invite-only finale. Red vs Blue live.

04 / 09:30 FRI

Conference Day

Two tracks. Talks, panels, papers, expo.

05 / 18:00 FRI

Prize + Close

Final standings. Prizes on main stage.

> THE CTF

Three tracks. One night.

Community-built challenges on our CTFd fork. HTB Groups on the official platform. Invite-only Battle Ground finale at dawn.

[ BLUE_TEAM ]

Defensive Track

SOC triage, log analysis, IR playbooks, hardening. Individual + team.

[ RED_TEAM ]

Offensive Track

Web, pwn, crypto, reversing, AD. Top performers qualify to Battle Ground.

[ HTB_GROUPS ]

HackTheBox Groups

Team CTF on the official HTB platform. Runs in parallel to community challenges.

> TRACKS

Eight themes. Mixed audience.

T-01

Offensive Security & Red Teaming

Live exploitation, hands-on tradecraft, adversary emulation.

T-02

Defensive Operations & Blue Team

Detection engineering, IR playbooks, threat hunting.

T-03

AI Security & AI-Powered Threats

Model attacks, prompt injection, defending AI pipelines.

T-04

Fintech & Mobile Money Security

Central Africa’s fastest-growing attack surface.

T-05

Cloud & Infrastructure Security

Hardening, IAM, kubernetes, supply chain.

T-06

Governance, Risk & Compliance

Frameworks that actually ship – for non-technical decision-makers.

T-07

Digital Policy & Regulation

Cameroonian data law, cross-border regulation, sovereignty.

T-08

Privacy & Data Protection

GDPR, Cameroonian data law, direct policy relevance.

> PARTNERS