# CTF Competitions

**Capture The Flag Competitions** simulate real-world cybersecurity scenarios, where individuals or teams work to solve a series of challenges related to various domains, such as cryptography, web security, network vulnerabilities, binary exploitation, and digital forensics.&#x20;

Each challenge typically involves capturing "flags," which are hidden pieces of information or tokens that participants must find and submit to earn points.&#x20;

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CTF competitions can take different forms:

* **Jeopardy-style:** Participants are presented with a board of challenges organized by categories and difficulty levels. Each challenge has a point value based on its complexity, with more difficult challenges offering higher points
* **Attack-defense:** Teams are pitted against each other, and the competition has two main objectives: to defend their systems while attempting to exploit vulnerabilities in their opponents' systems
* **Mixed CTF:** Combines elements of both jeopardy-style and attack-defense formats. Participants can tackle individual challenges while also engaging in attack-defense scenarios

Also, for the challenges encountered in this type of competition, we can find several categories as follows:

* **Cryptography:** Encoding, decoding, decrypting, or encrypting data, breaking ciphers, or exploiting weaknesses in cryptographic systems or algorithms
* **Web Security:** Finding and exploiting vulnerabilities in web applications
* **Binary Exploitation (PWN):** Analyzing and exploiting vulnerabilities in compiled binary programs, such as buffer overflows, memory corruption, and use-after-free bugs, to gain unauthorized control of a system
* **Forensics:** Investigating and analyzing digital evidence, such as recovering deleted files, examining logs, analyzing disk images, and network packet analysis
* **Reverse Engineering:** Deconstruct software or binaries to understand how they work, often involving disassembling code to find hidden functionalities or bypass protections
* **Miscellaneous (Misc):** This is a catch-all category for challenges that don’t fit into other areas. Can include problem-solving, logic puzzles, and unconventional challenges
* **OSINT:** Focuses on gathering publicly available information to solve challenges. This can include searching social media, public records, or websites for hidden clues and patterns
* **Mobile Security:** Finding and exploiting vulnerabilities in mobile apps (Android/iOS), which can include reverse engineering APKs, bypassing security measures, and extracting sensitive information from mobile devices
* **Cloud Security:** Challenges centered around securing and exploiting cloud environments such as _AWS_, _Azure,_ and _Google Cloud_
* **Hardware Hacking:** Manipulating or exploiting physical devices, such as IoT devices or embedded systems, to gain access, bypass protections, or extract sensitive data
* **Malware Analysis:** Analyze malicious software to understand its behavior, purpose, and methods of infection, including static or dynamic analysis of the malware in a controlled environment
* **Blockchain:** Tests knowledge of blockchain technology, cryptocurrency, and smart contracts
* **GamePwn:** Finding and exploiting security flaws in video games or gaming environments, such as vulnerabilities in game servers, network communication, or game files
* **AI-ML:** Challenges related to attacking or defending AI and machine learning models
* **Full-Pwn:** Challenges that involve gaining complete control over a system, often involving a combination of techniques like privilege escalation, binary exploitation, and network attacks to fully compromise the target
