Defend the X
Mission: Sector Hydra | Hack the Hospital
Season 2026 · Critical Domains
Sector Hydra is a live, competitive Capture-the-Flag defense mission inside THE GRID – focused on executing a realistic hospital intrusion scenario to understand how advanced threat actors compromise healthcare systems.
This mission is built to identify operators with the potential to join ON2IT’s Security Special Services Team – the top 10% of cybersecurity professionals.
MISSION LOGISTICS
Date: February 5, 2026 | 1.30 PM – 6.30PM
Location: ON2IT HQ, Zaltbommel, the Netherlands
Duration: Approximately 4 hours
Format: Competitive, team-based CTF
Access: Limited attendance · Registration required
Cost: Free
Inside THE GRID, a hidden cyber battlespace connecting critical civilian infrastructure – a new anomaly has emerged.
Threat intelligence indicates that an advanced persistent threat, APT-X09 “Cascade Viper”, is actively preparing campaigns against leading hospitals across the country. Their historical tradecraft shows a clear pattern: access via third parties, lateral movement through hospital IT environments, and manipulation of safety-critical control systems before impact becomes visible.
Riverside General Hospital has not been breached – yet.
But indicators suggest it matches the adversary’s preferred profile – architecture, dependencies, and exposed support systems.
Sector Hydra puts you in the attacker’s seat – so you can break the hospital’s infrastructure before they do This perspective gives you a critical advantage: understanding what to look for during incident investigations and, more importantly, knowing what actions prevent these intrusions from escalating into disasters.Your task is to think like the attacker and find a way to compromise a hospital.
In healthcare, waiting for confirmation means waiting too long.
When cyber incidents arrive late, they don’t stop at data.
They cascade into physical harm.
In Sector Hydra, participants form units, each led by an ON2IT Team Captain – senior operators from ON2IT’s Security Special Service Team.
Your mission is clear:
- Hack into Riverside General Hospital’s environment to understand the system landscape and its potential attack paths.
- Understand how an adversary can gain control across hospital IT and OT systems, including safety-critical processes.
- Learn how we defend hospitals against attacks by executing the adversary’s techniques before real-world impact occurs.
You will not observe this incident. You will cause it.
Your unit must gain initial access, move through the environment, choose attack paths, and adapt when access fails, while understanding the downstream impact of your actions.
During the mission, you will:
- Compete in an intense, team-based Capture-the-Flag challenge
- Execute attacker tradecraft used against modern hospital environments
- Experience how hospital intrusions escalate from “simple” IT compromise to patient-at-risk scenarios
- Learn how modern healthcare environments are attacked in practice – not theory
- Gain insight into how a top-tier Dutch Security Operations Center detects and responds to these threats
- Work directly with ON2IT SOC professionals who defend hospitals and critical services every day
- Engage with ON2IT’s Chief Commanders (CEO and CTO) on mission intent, operational standards, and what separates the top 10% from everyone else
Some units get overwhelmed.
Some units take control.
Choose well
Each defense unit is led by an ON2IT Team Captain – professionals responsible for defending real real healthcare and critical-infrastructure environments.
They do not solve the mission for you.
They apply pressure.
They challenge assumptions.
They observe how you think when systems fail and time matters.
Defend the X is also how ON2IT identifies operators who perform under real-world constraints.
For some participants, Sector Hydra is a challenge. For others, it’s the first step toward joining the Security Special Service Team.
Sector Hydra – Hack the Hospital is a live mission deployed inside THE GRID as part of Defend the X – Season 2026.
This mission represents the Healthcare Domain – where cyber failure directly threatens human life.
REQUEST MISSION ACCESS
Ready to operate inside a live hospital attack simulation?
