Standard Chartered and Hack The Box Partner to Strengthen Cyber Workforce Readiness Across Poland’s Financial Sector

Exclusive one-day Financial Services Security Hackathon in Warsaw will benchmark cybersecurity teams against AI-era threats and real-world incident scenarios.

Standard Chartered and Hack The Box (HTB) today announced a partnership to launch Operation Cyber Eagle, a Capture The Flag event for Financial Institutions. The exclusive, one-day cybersecurity competition will take place on 21 October 2026, at our office in Warsaw, Poland.

As financial institutions face an expanding attack surface and increasingly sophisticated AI-driven threats, traditional training often fails to replicate the speed, complexity, and pressure of live incidents. Operation Cyber Eagle aims to close that gap by providing a hands-on environment in which financial sector cyber defenders can test, measure, and benchmark their operational readiness against real-world attack vectors alongside industry peers.

The event will bring together cross-functional teams of up to four specialists, including Security Operations Center (SOC) analysts, red and blue team operators, threat hunters, penetration testers, and incident response personnel. Participants will navigate realistic threat scenarios modeled on live attack patterns targeting modern financial infrastructure. Challenges will incorporate emerging AI capabilities, requiring teams to combine automated tooling with human expertise while keeping critical thinking, adaptability, and cross-team communication at the core.

Beyond the competition itself, Operation Cyber Eagle is a strategic workforce development initiative designed to help cybersecurity leaders, including CISOs, Heads of SOC, and Cyber Defence Managers, evaluate and improve their teams’ incident response readiness and performance under pressure. Exercises like these can generate actionable insights into skill gaps, team communication dynamics, and overall defensive readiness.

“Financial institutions carry a critical responsibility to protect their clients, assets, and the broader global economy from systemic cyber risk,” said Przemysław Jaroszewski, Head, Cyber Defence Centre at Standard Chartered. “Poland is one of our primary cybersecurity hubs, with nearly 200 specialists in this field, supporting threat intelligence, cybersecurity operations, red teaming, pentesting and more. Partnering with Hack The Box to host Operation Cyber Eagle reflects our commitment to strengthening sector-wide resilience and fostering collaborative defense across the financial ecosystem.”

“Cybersecurity readiness is not measured by theoretical knowledge. It is proven through action under pressure,” said Haris Pylarinos, Founder and CEO of Hack The Box. “Exercises like Operation Cyber Eagle help organizations move beyond static training to demonstrate real-world readiness in the agentic era. As AI continues to reshape the threat landscape, human capabilities such as strategic reasoning, pattern recognition, and rapid decision-making remain irreplaceable. Partnering with Standard Chartered allows us to help security teams across Poland and the wider European financial sector build durable, future-ready defenses.”

How to Join:

Space is strictly limited to ensure an optimal competitive and analytical environment. Cybersecurity practitioners and financial sector security leaders are invited to request attendance and register their teams by September 21, 2026, here.