Contest: Capture the Flag

Slides from introduction lecture: cybersec_CTF.pdf Download cybersec_CTF.pdf 

Slides from wrap-up session: wrap-up.pdf Download wrap-up.pdf 

About

In the capture-the-flag (CTF) contest, the goal is to solve a set of challenges, each of them awarding a "flag". A flag gives a number of points depending on the difficulty of the challenge. The team with the most points at the end of the contest will be declared the winner.

The theme of the contest will be focused on cybersecurity, with challenges related to a wide range of topics within the cybersecurity field. The topics will be:

• Cryptography - Challenges in which you break ciphers or circumvent the security due to some misuse of a cipher or a cryptographic function.
• Pwn - Challenges where you are exploiting security flaws in programs. You are typically given the source code of the program and you need to find and exploit a vulnerability in the code.
• Rev - Reverese engineering of an executable in order to understand its functionality and extract information.
• Web - Challenges where you will exploit vulnerabilities in web applications.
• Misc - Other challenges that do not fall into any of the above categories.

The challenges will be of varying difficulty, allowing everyone to participate according to their own background knowledge and interests.

Time schedule

The cybersecurity tutorial scheduled 11:05 - 12:00 will continue for some time after lunch (perhaps 13:00-14:00). The tutorial will have quite much focus on topics relevant to the CTF. It will also introduce the CTF, detailing how to submit flags, see results, etc. At around 14:00 and onwards, you will work independently in groups with the CTF.

The CTF will stay open during the evening for those interested (and competitive). However, the Summer School does not require you to work on the challenges after 18:00 (End of day).

Prerequisites

With a Linux computer, you will have basically all you need for the CTF. If you have a Windows computer, then there are two main approaches to maximize your experience. The best option is to use a Kali Linux virtual machine on VirtualBox. The second best is to download and install Nmap for Windows (while Nmap itself will not be needed, it also includes a Windows version of Netcat, called ncat.exe, which is very useful when interacting with some of the challenges).  On Linux, this program is called nc.

Note that, even without Netcat or Linux, you will be able to complete several challenges, so it is not an absolute requirement to have it. At least not for all group members.

Grouping

Doing grouping on distance with some uncertainty in who is actually participating is challenging. Based on the people signed up for Project Euler, I have made this grouping. Please send an email to the others in your group (during lunch on 25/8) in order to confirm your participation in that group. Then we might tweak the groups so that they can be fixed before the CTF starts.