🎙️ Listen: Black October: Cybersecurity Awareness Month Winners & Wrap-Up, the draw read live on CISO Insights, plus the Submission of the Week winners and a look back at the month.
| Place | Winner | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | William W., Virginia | NitroPhone 5a + USB-A and USB-C data blockers |
| 2nd | Allison J., Tennessee | Nitrokey Start + USB-A and USB-C data blockers (thank-you gift) |
| 3rd | Padmesh S., India | Nitrokey Passkey + USB-A and USB-C data blockers (thank-you gift) |
Every prize pack also includes a Nitrokey lanyard and a carry bag. Three further alternates were drawn in order (see the draw table below).
Week 1 (Oct 1–11): announced on the next episode.
Week 2 (Oct 12–18): —
Week 3 (Oct 19–25): —
Week 4 (Oct 26–31): announced with the November 5 draw.
Each submission is scored by at least two judges: relevance and accuracy (40), usefulness (30), creativity and clarity (30). Scores shown are the judges' averages. One Week 4 submission was received by LinkedIn message on October 30 and is judged as a Week 4 entry.
Brad brings 20 years of experience across military and defense environments. The Bamboo Fortress: How Bureaucracy Turns Urgency Into Process (ANN-AP-2026-001) draws on about 18 months of documented experience, government oversight findings, academic research and senior defense leaders' own statements. It asks how an institution can do everything required of it and still fail to resolve the problem. The answer isn't bad leaders. It's fragmented authority, where everyone owns their part and no one owns the outcome, and the people and institutional knowledge lost to that friction.
Read the paper → · Follow the work → antinarrative.network · Keep It Human.
Check it yourself: download verify-draw.mjs and run node verify-draw.mjs (Node 18+). It confirms the pool matches its fingerprint, fetches the seed from drand directly, and reruns the draw. Entrants can find their own line in the pool by the draw ID shown on their entry panel.
Thank-you gifts for 2nd and 3rd (added November 4, 2026, before the pool was frozen). The unlock milestones were not reached, so the NitroPhone is the only Sweepstakes prize. As a sponsor thank-you, not a Sweepstakes prize, Alternate 1 also receives a Nitrokey Start + USB data blocker and Alternate 2 a Nitrokey Passkey + USB data blocker, subject to the same verification as the winner. If a winner is replaced, everyone below moves up one place. The draw itself is unchanged.
Entries added by the sponsor (November 4, before the freeze). Two entrants were added by hand: the Week 4 submitter whose entry arrived by LinkedIn message on October 30 (1 entry + 25 free bonus entries for a first submission), and an October purchaser from Sponsor's Etsy shop (1 entry + 5 Shop Rewards Tier 2 bonus entries).
To request the winners list, email giveaway@cyberaware.win (Official Rules §14).