Pick yours — the choice carries to the CLI and the exam.
icoa@2026
Switchable on the page, in the CLI, and inside the exam.
Which computer are you using?
We'll auto-detect your system. If we got it wrong, pick the right tile — the install steps update instantly.
Windows
cmd · PowerShell · WSL2
macOS
Terminal
Linux / WSL
Ubuntu · Debian · Fedora
Three steps. About three minutes.
Install Node.js, install the ICOA CLI, start the CLI. That's it.
Two Windows paths. ICOA 2026 adopts WSL2 + Ubuntu as the full-experience setup. cmd or PowerShell is a friendly beginner entry — both are fully supported. Your national committee's guidance decides which fits your exam.
WSL2 + Ubuntu Recommended
Full Unix toolchain · fits Paper B or A · ~30 min install · needs admin rights
STEP 1
Enable WSL2 (as Administrator)
Right-click PowerShell → Run as administrator. Then:
wsl --install -d Ubuntu-22.04
Reboot when prompted. Ubuntu opens automatically — create a Linux username and password.
Best for: students aiming for Sydney finals, ages 16+.
Your exam center decides which paper you take — and on Windows, which setup fits (cmd/PowerShell for Paper C, WSL2 for Paper B or A). Ask your teacher. Do not choose either yourself — mismatches cause token/exam conflicts we can't fix afterwards.
These selection resources offer progressive multi-platform support. Each country's national committee decides the format that fits — and is free to run its selection in an alternative format entirely.
Key CLI screens at a glance
Five key moments, auto-cycling every 3 seconds. For the full walkthrough, see the video near the top of this page.
Terminal — icoa@2026:~
$ icoa══════════════════════════════════════════ ICOA — International Cyber Olympiad in AI 2026 The World's First AI Security Olympiad══════════════════════════════════════════
Sydney, Australia · Jun 27 – Jul 2, 2026
https://icoa2026.auCLI v2.19.98
Select mode:
› National Selection
Practice (demo)
About
↑/↓ to move · Enter to select
Paper B — Selection Round 1
Question 3 of 40 Time: 82:14
Which is the primary risk of a SQL injection?
A) CPU overload
B) Unauthorized data access
C) Browser crash
D) Slow rendering
Type A/B/C/D · n = next · p = prev
━━ AI Chat ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
you > Can you explain what SQL injection is?
ai > SQL injection is an attack where
a malicious user inserts SQL code
into an input field to manipulate
the database query...
AI assistance is allowed on Paper B/A:back to return to the question
Submit exam?
40 answered / 40 total
All questions complete.› Yes, submit final
No, keep reviewing
Submission is final. Token is one-shot.
ICOA-CLI is just ~443 KB total — once Node.js is installed, the exam runs smoothly even over 3G networks.
// HOW TO PREPARE
How to prepare for your paper
Every candidate — C, B, or A — starts from the same foundation. Paper-specific prep layers on top.
Inside the exam, type ref to pull up the full command reference — all 110 ICOA operations at a glance.
Paper S Sydney finals — beyond national selection
ICOA 2026 Sydney adds a fourth tier above A/B/C — call it Paper S (Sydney-only). It includes advanced AI-security challenges — adversarial ML, not just prompt injection. Finalists should be comfortable with Python 3 and the Machine Learning Fundamentals — numpy (arrays), pandas (dataframes), and sklearn (models). The national-selection Paper A does not currently include this content; Paper S is a Sydney-only track.
Pre-Arrival Study Recommendation for National Selection Winners
Candidates who have earned a place to represent their country at ICOA 2026 Sydney are encouraged to use the weeks before arrival for focused preparation. The adversarial-ML track of CTF4AI draws directly from the foundational literature in AI security; familiarity with the paper below will materially improve problem-solving on site.
Primary reading — Biggio, B. & Roli, F. (2018). Wild Patterns: Ten Years After the Rise of Adversarial Machine Learning. Pattern Recognition, 84, 317–331.
→ arxiv.org/abs/1712.03141
The standard survey of the field. It establishes the taxonomy ICOA's problems are built on — reading it end-to-end is the single most valuable preparation you can do before the competition.
AI security sits at the intersection of two disciplines that, until very recently, were treated as post-graduate territory. Until around 2024, work in this space happened almost exclusively at the graduate-student level and above. Since then, universities worldwide have begun formalizing undergraduate AI tracks, but no standardized international curriculum yet exists for secondary students in AI security. That gap is precisely what an Olympiad is for.
A growing number of secondary students are already producing serious work at the AI-security frontier. In most countries, AI × Cybersecurity remains a doctoral-research field — our bet is that, in the middle of this AI transformation, bright secondary students can engage meaningfully with research-level problems. Enough of them already are.
We tip our hat to IOAI and IAIO — the two AI Olympiads that paved the way. ICOA joins them as the first Olympiad dedicated to AI Security: the discipline that, in the age of AI agents, most directly decides how safe this technology actually is.
IOAI · IAIO · ICOA — how ICOA 2026 positions itself alongside the two existing AI Olympiads.
Our commitment
215 versions and counting. From 1.0.0 to 2.19.98, ICOA-CLI has shipped 215 iterations — and we keep going. If you hit a technical issue, email australia@icoa2026.au. During national selection we'll do our best to provide remote technical support to every participating country. Thanks to ICOA-CLI's ~443 KB footprint, most on-site problems are resolvable in minutes, not hours.
Our Vision
AI Security is still mostly a doctoral research area in most of the world. In the AI-agent era, we believe that bright secondary students can take part in it — and do real work. ICOA exists to be that platform.
// ROADMAP & RESOURCES
ICOA is here to stay.
National selections now. Sydney is the inaugural global final. The three editions after it are already locked or in motion.
2026
🇦🇺
Sydney, Australia
27 Jun – 2 Jul 2026
Inaugural global final. National selections running now.
2027
🇨🇳
Chengdu, China
Dates TBA
Confirmed host city.
2028
🇰🇿
Almaty, Kazakhstan
Dates TBA
Planned host city.
2029
🌏
Your city?
Host applications
Opens after Sydney. Interested national committees — email us.
Info Pack and README.first are at the top of this page. All downloads open in a new tab. Questions? Email australia@icoa2026.au.
// FUTURE PLAN · GA & BEYOND
The General Assembly — and what comes after
Sydney isn't just a week of competition. It's where national delegations meet in the General Assembly to shape the next chapter of global AI-security education.
At the General Assembly (GA), all participating country representatives convene to debate and pass resolutions for the future of ICOA. One constructive proposal under discussion: a sustained post-competition exchange — ASRA will host an ongoing global video course training so national teams can build year-round capacity, not just the week of Sydney.
Priority access to the training program is one of several Founder Country advantages. Reach out to discuss how your country can qualify and what support comes with it.
Visa acceleration — action by 6 May 2026
National committees: please submit team leader and competitor details before 6 May 2026 so we can start visa acceleration. Later submissions may affect attendance.
For course enrollment, Founder Country inquiries, or visa support — email australia@icoa2026.au.
Help & troubleshooting
The seven questions we get most often. Click to expand.
Mostly a legacy cmd.exe codepage issue on older Windows. Fix by platform:
cmd (Windows 10) — run chcp 65001 before icoa to switch the console to UTF-8.
cmd / PowerShell (Windows 11) — usually UTF-8 by default; if not, the same chcp 65001 works.
WSL2 / macOS / Linux — no issue, Unicode is native.
Fallback anywhere — inside the CLI, type lang en to stay in English.
Tokens are exactly 10 characters, letters + digits, case-insensitive. No dashes or spaces. Check 0 (zero) vs O (letter).
Someone (or an earlier session) started this token on a different machine. Ask your proctor to run ICOA_RESET_STATE=1 icoa on your current machine. If you're on a new laptop after a hardware failure, ask your organizer for a fresh token.
Ask your proctor. They will either unlock your token to resume on a new device, or issue a fresh token with a clean timer. Your national committee sets the policy.
Windows: right-click cmd → "Run as administrator", then retry. macOS / Linux: use sudo npm install -g icoa-cli.
Windows: run cmd or PowerShell as administrator. macOS / Linux: prefix with sudo if needed. A fresh ICOA-CLI install is only ~443 KB, so even on a slow connection it's quick. Follow your exam center's instructions if they specify otherwise.
Append @<version> to the install command:
npm install -g icoa-cli@2.19.97
Replace 2.19.97 with whatever version your exam center specifies. Different exams may pin to different versions — always follow your exam center's exact version requirement.
ICOA records only your answers and timing for grading. No personal data (name, email) is collected on our servers unless your national committee requests it separately. The token is your only identifier.
cmd and PowerShell are identical for ICOA — pick whichever opens first; both fit Paper C. WSL2 + Ubuntu is recommended for Paper B or A (full Unix toolchain). If your paper isn't assigned yet, ask your teacher — don't install WSL speculatively, it needs admin rights some school laptops lack.
Each token is one-shot. After you submit (or auto-submit at timeout), the token is permanently used. Retakes require a new token from your organizer — at their discretion.
Still stuck? Email your national selection committee — they handle everything from tokens to resets.
