What mHACKeroni does

mHACKeroni is an Italian Capture The Flag (CTF) competition team founded in 2018 through the merger of five Italian academic security research teams—Tower of Hanoi, c00kies@venice, n0pwn intended, TheRomanXpl0it, and about:blankets—primarily affiliated with Italian universities. The team competes at the elite tier of international cybersecurity competitions and has consistently qualified for the DEFCON CTF Finals since 2018, with its standout competitive achievement being first place at Hack-A-Sat 4 in 2023. Core technical capabilities span cryptography, binary exploitation, reverse engineering (including Unity IL2CPP binaries), custom cipher cryptanalysis, PyPy JIT internals, and satellite/orbital security, which the team documents publicly through detailed challenge writeups on its website.

The team's 'product' surface is its published technical content—challenge writeups, exploit methodology, and analysis published at mhackeroni.it—rather than commercial software or services. There is no public API, no commercial product offering, and no disclosed service revenue stream. Activities are organized around participation in competitions such as DEFCON CTF, Hack-A-Sat, Ctrl+Space CTF, HITCON, Codegate, and Google CTF.

The business model is sponsorship- and prize-driven rather than commercial. Revenue, where it exists, derives from competition prizes (including a US Space Force-linked Hack-A-Sat event in 2023) and financial sponsorship from a structured sponsor stack: gold-tier support from DriveSec and 7 Layers, and silver-tier support from Wuerth Phoenix, Keyless, rev.ng, CNIT (the Italian National Inter-University Consortium for Telecommunications), and Stackbits. No venture capital, private equity, or institutional ownership is disclosed.

Name

mHACKeroni

Legal name

mHACKeroni

Website

https://mhackeroni.it

Company type

Private

Founded year

2018

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

mHACKeroni is an Italian Capture The Flag (CTF) competition team, founded in 2018, that competes at the elite tier of international cybersecurity contests—including consistent DEFCON CTF Finals appearances and the 2023 Hack-A-Sat 4 championship—serving the global cybersecurity research community and supported by corporate sponsors.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D

Marketing channels1 record

Core offering

mHACKeroni is an Italian Capture The Flag (CTF) competition team that participates in international cybersecurity competitions such as DEFCON CTF Finals, Hack-A-Sat, Ctrl+Space, HITCON, Codegate, and Google CTF. The team publishes detailed public writeups of their challenge solutions on mhackeroni.it, covering advanced topics including Unity reverse engineering, PyPy JIT exploitation, custom cipher cryptanalysis, satellite system security, and RISC-V binary exploitation. The team's activities are funded by corporate sponsors and competition prizes rather than commercial product or service sales.

Product overview

mHACKeroni is an Italian CTF (Capture The Flag) competition team founded in 2018, not a commercial product company. They maintain a blog (mhackeroni.it) that publishes writeups documenting their solutions to CTF challenges from competitions such as DEF CON CTF, Hack-A-Sat, Ctrl+Space CTF, HITCON, Codegate, Google CTF, and various other security competitions. Their 'offerings' consist of public educational content including challenge writeups, news about competition participation, a gallery of team photos, and sponsor acknowledgments. No commercial products or services are offered.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Quantifiable outcome

• DEFCON CTF Finals qualification achieved consistently since 2018
• +1 more outcomes

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• Tower of HanoicoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerFounding member team that merged into mHACKeroni. Tower of Hanoi (towerofhanoi.it) contributed security researchers and expertise to form the unified team.
• c00kies@venicecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerFounding member team from secgroup.github.io that merged into mHACKeroni, contributing security research expertise to the combined team.
• n0pwn intended (Spritzers)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerFounding member team from spritz.math.unipd.it that merged into mHACKeroni, contributing academic security research expertise.
• TheRomanXpl0itcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerFounding member team (theromanxpl0it.github.io) that merged into mHACKeroni, contributing additional security research capabilities.
• about:blanketscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerFounding member team (@aboutblankets) that merged into mHACKeroni, contributing to the combined security research team.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• FluxFingers: Ruhr-University Bochum's CTF team; another European university CTF group with overlapping competition footprint and academic security research profile.
• int 0x80: Korean CTF team with sustained DEFCON Finals appearances; directly comparable international CTF competitor in the same competitive circuits as mHACKeroni.
• Plaid Parliament of Pwning (PPP): Carnegie Mellon's elite CTF team and multi-time DEFCON CTF Finals champion; directly comparable to mHACKeroni as a university-affiliated, top-tier competitive security team with similar writeup-driven community engagement.
• Dragon Sector: Polish CTF team with multi-year DEFCON Finals presence; comparable European academic-affiliated elite CTF team competing in the same international circuits as mHACKeroni.
• HITCON CTF Team: Taiwanese CTF team affiliated with the HITCON security conference; comparable elite-tier competitor with strong regional identity, parallel to mHACKeroni's Italian academic roots.
• Shellphish: UC Santa Barbara's CTF team and consistent DEFCON CTF Finals qualifier; closely analogous to mHACKeroni in academic origins, multi-category expertise, and competition pedigree.
• RPISEC: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's CTF team; comparable academic-rooted, consistently qualifying competitive security team publishing research and writeups.

Broad incumbents

• Google Project Zero: Elite in-house vulnerability research team at Google; comparable as a top-tier security research organization, though structured as a corporate function rather than an independent team like mHACKeroni.
• Trail of Bits: Commercial security firm founded by ex-CTF competitors (including Shellphish alumni); relevant comparable illustrating the commercialization pathway open to elite CTF teams like mHACKeroni.

Others

• Order of the Overflow (OOO): Organizers of DEFCON CTF; comparable ecosystem participant rather than competitor — relevant given mHACKeroni's deep involvement in the same DEFCON CTF ecosystem.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat2 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/mhackeroni
• Facebookfacebook.com/mhackeroni

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors1 record

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about mHACKeroni