Second Annual Lesotho National Cybersecurity Hackathon 2025 – A Huge Success!
The Internet Society Lesotho Chapter, in collaboration with the Lesotho Communications Authority (LCA), proudly hosted the second annual National Cybersecurity Hackathon from 5 to 7 November 2025. The energy, talent, and enthusiasm this year were off the charts! Registration opened in September and we were thrilled to receive an overwhelming response: 32 teams of four (128 participants in total) signed up via the ISOC Lesotho Chapter’s social media platforms. Gender inclusion was strongly encouraged , and it was fantastic to see so many diverse and women-led teams taking part.
For a full week in September, all 32 teams competed in online pre-qualifiers on the next-generation Capture the Flag (CTF) platform generously provided the African Forum of Computer Emergency Response Teams (AfricaCERT) , who was a partner to the hackathon. AfricaCERT is a nonprofit organization founded to provide leadership in cybersecurity related issues in Africa.
Challenges spanned OSINT (opensource intelligence), cryptography, reverse engineering, signals intelligence, web exploitation, forensics, and more — with difficulty levels varying from easy to extremely tough. After an intense battle on the leaderboard, the top 10 teams (40 participants) advanced to the national finals. The main event ran from 5 to 7 November 2025, perfectly timed alongside the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Regional Cyber Drill. On 5 November, the finalists tackled a fresh set of online CTF challenges. The following day (6 November), everyone gathered in person at Durham Link for the always-exciting social engineering and attack-and-defense rounds. When the dust settled, we had our champions:
- The combined Attack-and-Defense and Social Engineering category was dominated by a single team: Intra31 from the National University of Lesotho.
- In the CTF track, four teams stood on the podium, led by ShadowGrid from Botho University in first place.
The grand awards ceremony took place on 7 November at Avani Maseru. The awards ceremony took place during the SADC Cyber Drill closing event and attended by over 200 people, including representatives from the Ministry of Information, Communications, Science, Technology and Innovation, SADC, local tech companies, and academia.
A heartfelt thank you to everyone who made this possible: LCA (title sponsor), Econet Telecom Lesotho, Global IT, RSL, and AfricaCERT for the outstanding CTF platform. Year two was bigger, tougher, and more rewarding than the first — and we’re already excited for 2026. Lesotho’s cybersecurity community is growing fast, and the future looks incredibly bright. Congratulations to all participants and winners! Keep pushing the limits!
Prizes were bigger and better than ever:
First place CTF was team ShadowGrid from Botho University. The prize package comprised laptops from LCA and corporate gifts from Revenue Services Lesotho (RSL)
Second place was Intra31 team from NUL. The price package included tablets and power banks from LCA + RSL gifts
Third place was team AionPi from NUL
Fourth place was Maluti Gurdian from NUL. The prizes for the third and fourth place consisted of mousepads, mice, headphones + RSL gifts
Attack-and-Defense winners were team Intra31, which won Samsung smartphones sponsored by Econet Telecom Lesotho.
Social Engineering special prize of a M3,000 Game gift voucher went to Intra31
The award for overall best individual performer, Lemohang Khaile (a final-year student from Botho University), who won a 3-month internship at Global IT.
A heartfelt thank you to everyone who made this possible: LCA (title sponsor), Econet Telecom Lesotho, Global IT, RSL, and AfricaCERT for the outstanding CTF platform. Year two was bigger, tougher, and more rewarding than the first — and we’re already excited for 2026. Lesotho’s cybersecurity community is growing fast, and the future looks incredibly bright. Congratulations to all participants and winners! Keep pushing the limits!
Together, we are keeping the Internet trustworthy, reliable, and secure for the future!
Official Co-organiser
Internet Society
Lesotho Chapter
Sponsors
