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HackLayer doesn’t teach you to follow rules — it trains you to rewrite them. Every exploit, every defense, every challenge is crafted to sharpen your instincts and forge a next-level cybersecurity mindset.

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Privacy Policy

Last Updated: May 2026

 

At HackLayer (accessible via https://hacklayer.com), we respect the privacy of our visitors, security learners, and community members. This Privacy Policy documents the types of data we collect, how it is processed, and how we protect your information across our web platform and desktop interactive nodes.

If you have additional questions or require more information about our Privacy Policy, do not hesitate to contact us at support@hacklayer.com.

 

1. Log Files and Technical Data

HackLayer follows a standard procedure of using log files. These files log visitors when they visit the website or interact with our gamified platform nodes. The information collected includes:

  1. Internet Protocol (IP) addresses

  2. Browser user agent strings and system types

  3. Internet Service Provider (ISP)

  4. Date and time stamps of challenge completion

  5. Referring/exit pages and click alignment

This data is used solely for analyzing traffic trends, administering the challenge ecosystem, tracking leaderboard authenticity, preventing spam/automated bots, and optimizing infrastructure performance. Crucially, this data is not linked to any personally identifiable information.

 

2. Comments and Community Interaction

When visitors leave comments or submit queries on the site, we collect the data shown in the comments or report forms, along with the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to assist in automated spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to verify profile alignment. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. Upon approval of your comment, your profile picture becomes publicly visible within the context of your comment.

 

3. Media Upload Guidelines

If you are an authorized contributor or researcher uploading images or proof-of-concept logs to the website, you should strictly avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Other visitors can download and extract any location data from images hosted publicly on the web.

 

4. Cookies Policy

HackLayer utilizes cookies to elevate your browsing and learning flow:

  1. User Convenience: If you leave a comment or interact with our forms, you may opt-in to saving your name, email address, and website in cookies. These exist for your convenience so you do not have to fill in details repeatedly. These cookies persist for one year.

  2. Authentication Loops: If you visit our administrative login portals, we set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

  3. Session Persistence: When logging into authorized portals, we establish cookies to preserve your session details and screen choices. Login cookies persist for two days, and screen configuration options last for one year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login stays active for two weeks.

 

5. Embedded Content From Third Parties

Articles or challenge descriptions on HackLayer may include embedded content (e.g., architectural diagrams, instructional videos, external code repositories). Embedded content from third-party websites behaves exactly as if the visitor has visited the external website directly.

These platforms may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded element, especially if you possess an active account and are logged into that third-party website.

 

6. Data Sharing and Third-Party Disclosure

  1. Zero Monetization of Data: HackLayer does not sell, trade, or rent user data to third-party marketing firms or external corporate entities.

  2. Administrative Operations: If you initiate a password reset or support query, your current IP address will be included in the automated system email for verification and account security.

  3. Automated Vetting: Visitor comments, contact queries, and bug reports may be routed through automated spam and malicious text detection services.

 

7. Data Retention & Preservation Thresholds

  1. Interaction Metadata: If you submit a comment or validate a public flag, the metadata is retained indefinitely. This allows our backend system to recognize and approve any follow-up actions automatically instead of queueing them for manual moderation.

  2. Administrative Accounts: For the restricted set of users that register on our infrastructure (such as system admins or specific internal testers), we store the profile details they provide. All authorized users can view, modify, or delete their personal configurations at any time (usernames cannot be changed). Website administrators retain equivalent viewing and modification access.

 

8. Data Protection Rights (GDPR & CCPA Alignment)

We want to ensure you are fully aware of all your data protection rights. Every user interacting with HackLayer is entitled to the following:

  1. The Right to Access: You have the right to request copies of your personal logs or data records held by HackLayer.

  2. The Right to Erasure: You have the right to request that we erase your personal data records, under certain legal conditions, provided it does not conflict with data we are legally and technically obliged to retain for administrative, system integrity, or security monitoring purposes.

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