ByteBattlers Team, with Dr. Michał Walkowski from our Faculty, won in the final of Operation Cyber Flag ’26, held as part of the Cyber LEGION exercises. The top teams selected in the qualifiers competed in the decisive phase, which took place at the Command of the Cyber Defence Forces Component in Legionowo. Congratulations!

The final, which took place on the 26th and 27th of May, followed the Capture the Flag Attack-Defence format. The participants had to simultaneously defend their own infrastructure, analyse adversary actions, identify vulnerabilities, and respond to dynamically changing situations. The winners were ByteBattlers with Dr. Michał Walkowski from the Department of ICT and Telecommunications.

– I was invited to the team by one of the cybersecurity specialists I collaborated with on commercial projects and Locked Shields competitions. After the Cyber Defence Forces Command opened the qualifications, he started assembling the team, and our result confirms the value of a well-completed and integrated team – says Dr. Michał Walkowski.

The finalists worked on an extensive cyber range simulating systems corresponding to real solutions used by modern armed forces and infrastructure of key importance for national security. Scenarios included battlefield management systems, solutions supporting space missions, critical infrastructure elements, radio technologies, alternative communication mechanisms, and drone systems.

Photo: www.wojsko-polskie.pl

Dr. Walkowski emphasises that the competition was very dynamic. In the Attack-Defence formula, twelve teams simultaneously attack and defend each other, making quick decisions, good strategy, and efficient cooperation crucial.

– The outcome is no longer determined solely by the effectiveness of individual actions, but by the throughput of the entire process: from analysis and vulnerability identification, through automation, to a repeated attack on all targets – explains our researcher.

Besides Dr. Michał Walkowski, the winning team also included:

• Marcin Grzesiak – Senior Red Team Operations Expert, Standard Chartered Bank
• Tomasz Bukowski – Head of RedTeam, Standard Chartered Bank
• Radosław Żuber – Red Team Infrastructure and R&D Lead in Standard Chartered Bank
• Konrad Papaj – Threat Hunting Specialist, Standard Chartered Bank
•  Kamil Bączyk – Lead Principal Enterprise Security Architect, Microsoft
• Lukas Geras – Cybersecurity Expert, Pekao SA
• Marcin Ogorzelski – Red Team Operations Expert at Standard Chartered Bank

The team was additionally assisted in advancing to the final and during the final by:

• Piotr Stachowiak – Senior Cybersecurity Analyst, NASK SA
• Michał Plesiński – Senior Cybersecurity Analyst, NASK SA
• Przemysław Cichocki – Service Security Architect, Aeven
• Marcin Zygmunt – Senior Java Software Engineer, XTB

Everyone belongs to the Cyber LEGION community – built by Cyber Defence Forces Command as part of the consolidation program for the Polish cyber community around the Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland and the Cyber Defence Forces, created and coordinated by Colonel Jarosław Wacko.

The use of AI proved to be an important element of the competition. As reported by our researcher, the team used groups of AI agents that supported participants in tasks such as recognizing and writing exploits (malicious programs or code snippets that exploit software vulnerabilities), patching vulnerabilities, and capturing flags. The role of the human was to supervise, verify, and approve their actions.

– It was most interesting to see how AI agents began to cooperate. Like a true team, they independently established communication channels, described the state of services to each other, handed tasks to one another, and used effective solutions found by others – explains Dr. Walkowski.

As he adds, the competition was a valuable experience for him from both a practical and research perspective. Operation Cyber Flag provided him with material for further research on the use of AI agents in offensive and defensive operations, while also demonstrating the importance of communication, strategy, and effective team organization.