flagged is Hack Club’s first dedicated cybersecurity ysws.

the idea is simple: learn security by actually doing it. participants break intentionally vulnerable systems, document how they did it, and earn real security hardware for their work.

the goal is to help the next generation of teenage hackers grow into skilled security researchers and engineers.

what is Hack Club?

Hack Club is a global nonprofit community for teenagers who love building things with technology. thousands of students around the world participate by creating software, hardware, and open-source projects.

ysws model

a core part of hack club is the ysws model, which stands for you ship, we ship

if you build and ship a real technical project, hack club ships you something in return, usually tools or hardware that help you build even more.

how it works

instead of building a project from scratch, participants solve challenges in a Capture the Flag (ctf) competition.

ctf competitions are a popular way to learn security. each challenge contains a vulnerability or hidden weakness in a system.

participants must:

• investigate the system
• discover the vulnerability
• exploit it to reveal a hidden flag (a secret string of text)

these challenges cover real security topics such as:

• web vulnerabilities
• cryptography puzzles
• digital forensics
• reverse engineering
• steganography and hidden data

finding the flag proves you successfully broke the system.

ys (you ship)

in flagged, finding the flag isn’t enough.

to earn rewards, participants must ship a technical write-up explaining exactly how they solved the challenge.

a good write-up usually includes:

• what the vulnerability was
• how they discovered it
• the tools or code used to exploit it
• why the exploit works

this turns the process from simple trial-and-error into real learning.

the goal is to help participants move beyond “script-kiddie” tactics and start thinking like security engineers who understand the systems they’re attacking.

ws (we ship)

when participants successfully complete challenges and ship high-quality write-ups, Hack Club ships them real security hardware.

the idea is to put professional-grade tools into the hands of teenagers who have already demonstrated the skills to use them.

rewards may include:

• YubiKey
• Flipper Zero
• hardware authentication tokens used by security teams worldwide to protect accounts with strong two-factor authentication.
• a portable hacking multi-tool used for interacting with wireless systems, access control devices, and embedded hardware.
• specialized security hardware
• things like wifi development boards, breakout kits, and other tools commonly used in hardware and wireless security research.

flagged is essentially a skill-level-up program.

learn how real systems break. prove you understand the exploit. earn the tools used by professional security researchers.

show us you can hack responsibly, and we’ll help you hack even better.