The 2023 Ambassador World Cup Final: Results, Impact, and Looking Ahead

The Results Are In

And the winner is…Spain! First off, our sincerest congratulations to the Spanish team for taking home the title. It was no easy task to defeat the other top three teams — Israel, Nepal, and France — with the top four teams having eliminated 25 other global teams throughout the year. Here are the final standings:

1. Spain
2. Israel
3. Nepal 
4. France

When asked what led to the team’s success, the Spanish team reflected:

“We believe that the success of our team is due to the wide variety of profiles we have, which allows us to have different approaches while testing. On the other hand, we have had a lot of collaboration between Spanish hackers and a great participation from 60-70% of our team members and even members who do not participate on a regular basis have joined this AWC edition with an outstanding contribution.”

Hacker Awards From the Finals

Congratulations to Team France (Paris) Brand Ambassador Blaklis who received:

• Best Hacker Award
• Best Bug Award
• First place in bounties in the Final round with $25k+

And congratulations to 16-year-old Team Israel member Matanber for receiving:

• Best New Hacker Award
• $150k+ in bounties combined between the semifinals and final rounds

“The Ambassador World Cup allowed me to meet and compete with some amazing hackers.The event is a great opportunity for lesser-known hackers to break into the live hacking event scene, which would otherwise be quite hard to do. I really enjoyed the event, and I found it very motivating.”
— Matan Berson, Team Israel

Customers

Our final-round customers did not make it easy on our finalist teams. Thank you to A.S. Watson, Adobe, Mercado Libre, and TikTok for bringing incredibly challenging scopes that pushed our finalists to the limits. 

“The Ambassador World Cup introduced us to new talent we might not have met otherwise. We saw an increased flow of new vulnerabilities during the event, including the identification of some high-risk vulnerabilities. This event was engaging and powerful for my team and provided us a great deal of value, as well as some fantastic new friends in the hacker community.”
— Feliks Voskoboynik, Group CISO, A.S. Watson Group

The Impact of the 2023 Ambassador World Cup

The 2023 Ambassador World Cup showcased exciting impact — both through impressive statistics and new relationships developed between hackers and organizations.

“Connecting with hackers from continents outside of LATAM was very valuable for us, as it provides us with a different perspective from individuals interacting with our applications for the first time, resulting in a very high technical level of vulnerabilities. Thank you very much to all the hackers who participated in our program, and we invite you to continue participating actively in our new public program. We hope to see you again next year or in an upcoming version of the AWC.”
— Alex Atehortua, Bug Bounty Program Leader, Mercado Libre

“The Ambassador World Cup (AWC) was transformative, offering a unique chance to enhance my skills on programs like Mercado Libre, where I had one of my best triage experiences. AWC introduced me to new programs, expanding my horizons. Grateful for my teammates’ collaboration and support, I eagerly look forward to more exciting challenges in future events.”
— @notsandip, Nepal Team

Finals by the Numbers

• 225 valid submissions
• 28.8% of valid submissions were high/critical
• $286K+ paid out in the final round

Ambassador World Cup by the Numbers

• 799 valid submissions
• 25.65% of valid submissions were high/critical
• $1.7M+ in rewards have been paid to hackers throughout the tournament

Breadth of Customers

• 12 different customers
• Five industries: Media & Entertainment, Cryptocurrency & Blockchain, Computer Software, Internet & Online Services, and Retail & eCommerce
• Five regions: CAN, NAM, EMEA, LATAM, and APAC

“After three years partnering with HackerOne, TikTok was honored to participate in the final round of the Ambassador World Cup live hacking event as we continue deepening our efforts to collaborate with leading security researchers from around the world.”
— Kim Albarella, Head of Global Security, TikTok

We’d like to give an immensely grateful “thank you” to all 2023 Ambassador World Cup participants for their partnership with the hacker community and HackerOne. These programs represent the best security teams in the world, collaborating with the smartest hackers in the world, for the common goal of a safer internet. Along with our sincere gratitude to our final round customers A.S. Watson, Adobe, Mercado Libre, and TikTok, we’d also like to thank our customers from the first four rounds:

“We were delighted to participate in the Ambassador World Cup Final alongside these talented researchers. Observing real-time hacking techniques was eye-opening and allowed our product security team to gain insights on the spot. This is what community partnership is all about – crowdsourcing security efforts to reinforce and elevate the resilience of our products. Our learnings from this competition directly strengthen our products going forward, and we’re excited to expand our community as a result of this effort.”
— Daniel Ventura, Product Security Incident Response Team, Adobe

Looking Ahead to the Next Edition of the World Cup

As we congratulate our winners and express gratitude for our customer participants, we can’t help but get a rush of excitement looking ahead to the next edition of the Ambassador World Cup. As the third Ambassador World Cup, expect that’s bigger, tougher, and even more exciting than the previous two years. The first-ever Ambassador World Cup winner was Team France (Bordeaux). This year, it was Team Spain. Will the EU make it a three-peat? Or will another nation bring home first place? Keep hacking along with us to find out.