SEOUL, July 24 (Yonhap) -- An international hacking defense competition was held in southern Seoul this week, the science ministry said Friday.

Twenty teams from eight countries competed in the main round of "CODEGATE 2026," which ran for the past two days since Thursday, the ministry said.

A total of 3,333 participants from 88 countries took part in the online preliminaries for this year's competition, which marked its 18th year, the ministry added.

For this year's competition, an artificial intelligence (AI) hacker co-developed by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the event organizers took part in the competition for the first time.

The competition was accompanied by a cybersecurity conference, featuring speakers such as Michael Gronager, the co-founder of Chainalysis, a compliance and investigation software.

fairydust@yna.co.kr

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