The 2026 giveaway is closed. 🏆 The NitroPhone was drawn November 5: see the winners and verify the draw →
Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2026 · results

31 episodes.
One NitroPhone.
Verifiably drawn.

Our first Cybersecurity Awareness Month giveaway ran October 1–31 alongside a daily CISO Insights episode. 25 people from 9 countries entered, the community sent in tabletop exercises and research, and the NitroPhone 5a was drawn on November 5 from a public randomness beacon that anyone can check.

See the winners & verify the drawListen to the winners episode
✓ Free to enter, no purchase necessary
✓ Pool frozen and fingerprinted before the draw
✓ Seed from the drand public beacon
Grand prize · drawn Nov 5, 2026Awarded
NitroPhone 5a, back and front
NitroPhone 5a
Won by William W., Virginia
2nd · Allison J., Tennessee · Nitrokey Start bundle
3rd · Padmesh S., India · Nitrokey Passkey bundle
Weeks 1 + 2 · William W. · Deepfake CFO Call tabletop
Weeks 3 + 4 · Brad N. (ANN) · The Bamboo Fortress
25entrants, 9 countries
31daily podcast episodes
5community submissions
Stay in the loop

The giveaway is over. The work isn't.

Every October episode is still free to stream, the winning tabletop is free to run with your team, and the tools behind the month are part of CISO Marketplace.

All 31 October episodesCommunity & past submissionsCISO Marketplace membership
Archive

How the 2026 giveaway worked

Kept for the record. Entries, codes, shop rewards and submissions closed October 31, 2026; the Official Rules governed.

1

Enter free

Type your email, click the link we send, fill in four fields, and you're in the NitroPhone draw. Every entrant also gets a free month of ThreatWatch News. Nothing to buy.

2

Shop with CYBERAWARE26

20% off at ciso.diy, cyberpolicy.shop, generatepolicy.com, SecurityByDesign.shop and the membership. Your October net spend sets your shop-reward tier and bonus entries.

3

Unlock it together

At 250, 500, 750 and 1,000 entrants, more hardware joins the November 5 draw. Share your link: every friend who enters is +1 entry for you.

Shop rewards

Shop the month, get rewarded.
Every tier is guaranteed.

October net spend across our stores, after the 20% code. Hardware from securitygadgets.shop (Nitrokey, NovaCustom) counts at full price. Rewards are guaranteed and never run out; bonus entries count your highest tier only.

TierOctober net spendGets you thereGuaranteed rewardBonus entries
1$25+A tee, a policy template, a consumer PDFFree policy template or ciso.diy mini-kit+1
2$100+A compliance kit, a Pillar build guideTier 1 + SecurityByDesign tee or awareness poster+5
3$250+Org-tier kit, GeneratePolicy, a bundleTier 2 + $50 CISO Marketplace credits+10
4$500+Practitioner membership, vCISO-tier kitTier 3 + 3 months of Practitioner membership+25
5$1,000+Practice license, M&A or vCISO bundleTier 4 + Community Gift: +100 on the unlock bar for everyone+25
Not buying? Get the same 25 bonus entries free

Make your first community submission (a photo, 60-second tip, tabletop scenario or teardown) and we add 25 entries, the same as the top shop tier. Once per person, no purchase.

Hunt the bonus codes (+1 to +3 each)

Rolling easter eggs all month, following the CISO Insights themes (AI phishing, vishing & deepfakes, identity & passkeys, incident-response game day): listen for them in podcast episodes and look for QR or typed codes in our videos, blog articles, YouTube, TikTok and social posts, and at cisoinsights.show/security-awareness-2026.

Rewards ship worldwide. Import duties, if any, are the recipient's.

Community unlock ladder

The audience unlocks the prizes.

Every entry moves the bar for everyone. Hit a milestone and that prize enters the grand-prize draw. Share your link, bring a colleague, unlock the phone.

Enter free with your email
We email you a one-click link, no password. It also sets up your free CISO Marketplace account, where your perks land. One entry per person; no purchase necessary.
250
5 Nitrokey Start bundles enter the drawNitrokey Start + USB data blocker. Five winners.
Locked
500
3× Nitrokey 3 enter the draw + everyone gets 25 creditsThree Nitrokey 3 winners, and every entrant gets 25 CISO Marketplace credits (from Nov 1).
Locked
750
3 Practitioner memberships + a Passkey bundle + everyone gets CyberBriefThree winners get three months of Practitioner, one a Nitrokey Passkey bundle, and every entrant gets a month of the CyberBrief AI newsletter (from Nov 1).
Locked
1,000
NovaCustom NUC enters the drawA compact NUC for a home lab or SOC-in-a-box.
Locked
Submission of the Week · judged, not drawn

Submit anything. Win the week.

Every week the best submission of any kind (a tip, a setup tour, a teardown, a tabletop, a guide, a design, a talk) wins hardware, and the prize grows each week. Free to enter from almost anywhere. Your first submission also earns +25 entries in the NitroPhone draw.

Week 1 · Oct 1–11

Nitrokey Start + USB data blocker

+ 3 months of MicroSec Starter (75 credits/mo). Any submission type; judged, announced on the next episode.
Week 2 · Oct 12–18

Nitrokey Passkey + USB data blocker

+ 3 months of MicroSec Starter (75 credits/mo). Any submission type; judged, announced on the next episode.
Week 3 · Oct 19–25

Nitrokey 3 + $50 in CISO Marketplace credits

No winner: fewer than three eligible submissions, so this prize rolled over to Week 4 (rules §7.4).
Week 4 · Oct 26–31

2× Nitrokey 3 + $150 in CISO Marketplace credits

Week 4's Nitrokey 3 + $100, plus Week 3's rolled-over Nitrokey 3 + $50, plus 6 months of MicroSec Starter (75 credits/mo). Any submission type; closes Oct 31, announced with the November 5 draw.

Standout tabletops can be published on tabletopsec.com, guides on ciso.diy and designs on securitybydesign.shop, with credit and an invitation to the creator program. Have an audience? Join the affiliate program. Submit now →

>
Found a code?

Codes drop all month as rolling easter eggs, in CISO Insights podcast episodes, videos, articles and posts. Each is worth +1 to +3 entries, once per person.

FAQ & the fine print, in plain English

How this is legal, fair, and who's behind it.

Short answers here; the full Official Rules are linked in the footer and govern if anything conflicts.

Do I have to buy anything to win?

No. A free entry puts you in the grand-prize draw. Purchases earn guaranteed shop rewards plus a stated number of bonus entries, and anyone can get the same 25 bonus entries free with their first community submission. Every entry has identical odds.

Why is it a "sweepstakes" and not a "lottery" or "raffle"?

A lottery is prize + chance + payment. We remove the payment: there is always a free way in, and the free entry has the same odds per entry. Every entry you can earn by buying, you can also get free. Shop rewards involve no chance at all: hit the tier, get the reward. Skill-contest prizes are judged on merit, so they're not chance-based either.

Who is running this?

QSai LLC, a Texas limited liability company doing business as CISO Marketplace. Nitrokey, NovaCustom, YouTube, TikTok and Podbean are not sponsors and have no responsibility for this promotion; they supply the hardware or host our content, nothing more.

Where can I enter from?

Almost anywhere, 18+ (or the age of majority where you live). Everyone can enter the skill contest, make community submissions and earn shop rewards, and prizes ship worldwide (import duties are the winner's). The NitroPhone draw is open worldwide except in Italy, Brazil and mainland China, where chance draws need local government authorization; residents there can still win the skill contest. Not open at all in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Russia, Belarus or Quebec. Canadian winners answer a skill-testing question.

How are winners picked and told?

The NitroPhone draw is random, on November 5, 2026 from all eligible entries received by October 31, weighted by entries, read live on the podcast. Winners are emailed and have 7 days to respond and return a prize acceptance form; otherwise we redraw. Winner first names and state/country are posted here and read on the podcast.

Taxes?

Prizes are income to the winner. Under current US rules (2026), a prize worth $2,000 or more triggers an IRS Form 1099 and we'd need a W-9 from you; individual prizes here fall below that, but we'll still ask for a W-9 if the combined value you win crosses it. Winners outside the US are responsible for their own taxes and any import duty.

What do you do with my email?

You sign in with a free CISO Marketplace account, which verifies your email. We use your details to run the draw and contact winners. The newsletter is a separate checkbox and is never required to enter; unsubscribe anytime and you keep your entry. We don't sell the list. EU/UK entrants: our lawful basis is consent; email us to access or delete your data.

Can my employees / my MSP clients enter?

Yes. Anyone 18+ can enter with their own account, and each entrant gets a share link worth +1 entry per friend who enters (up to 25). QSai LLC staff and contractors, and the judges, are not eligible for prizes.

What if a prize runs out?

Shop rewards are digital or print-on-demand, so they don't run out. Draw and contest prizes are the fixed list on this page; if an item becomes unavailable we substitute one of equal or greater value.

What are the perks, and when do I get them?

Every entrant gets a free month of ThreatWatch News (10 publications plus Ask Cipher). If the unlock bar reaches 500, every entrant also gets 25 CISO Marketplace credits; at 750, a month of the CyberBrief AI newsletter. Weekly winners add three months of MicroSec Starter. All digital perks start November 1, 2026 and land on the CISO Marketplace account you entered with; you'll see them at my.cisomarketplace.com. Anyone who wins hardware we can't ship to them, or who prefers it, can take Practitioner membership time or credits of equal value instead.

Is the code combinable? Does hardware count?

CYBERAWARE26 is 20% off digital products and membership through Oct 31; one code per order, not combinable with member pricing. Hardware at securitygadgets.shop isn't discounted, but its full price counts toward your shop-reward tier.