If you’ve ever stepped into the world of Cybersecurity, you likely heard the term “CTF”, Capture The Flag cybersecurity competitions. These are hackers’ favorites to practice, learn, and boost those hacking skills!
To help break down its importance, I spoke with an experienced player who’s been in the game for about two years. With his national and international experiences, in the lines of different teams like Akasec from 1337 School, he’s here to share with us how he hacked his way through it all, with “CTFs”.
The importance of CTFs for beginners in cybersecurity
“CTFs are all about hacking (a.k.a cybersecurity in a more formal wording), so when you’re practicing CTFs, you’re ultimately practicing cybersecurity, isn’t that what you want as a “beginner”?”
Capture The Flag challenges are your first contact with real-life scenarios; they’re almost all you need to start your ethical hacking practice!
Are you aware of how diversified the challenge categories can be? ✨Let’s take a quick look:
Reverse Engineering:
To analyze compiled programs and binary executables, understand and expect their behavior until you find the flag. So we’re speaking of debugging, decompiling, and other skills.
Exploitation or Pwn:
It’s about finding programs’ vulnerabilities, gaining access, or leaking info. Concepts like buffer overflow, code injection, format string bugs, and more…
Web Exploitation:
Web server side for back-end exploitation, SQL and command injection, script analysis, directory traversal, or the web client aspect; more about front-end, HTML and JavaScript logic, etc…
Cryptography:
Encryption dive; exploit poorly implemented algorithms or logic to reveal the flag with RSA, AES, breakable hashes, padding attacks, and math-based skills.
Forensics:
Investigation mode. Recover information from files or even network captures to find traces.
Steganography:
The art of hiding and extracting data from files, images, audio, video, or any. So LSB manipulation, metadata analysis, and so on.
Networking:
One of my favorites, analyzing network traffic to extract flags, using Wireshark, tcpdump, and others to study the packet, understand protocols, and find your pass!
And the list goes on and on… You can see how rich it is for security skills development⚡️, without forgetting the critical thinking and cybersecurity problem-solving skills, as well as communication, group work, and peer-to-peer learning with your team of players!
From game to reality, CTF skills get reflected in real life
I asked our guest about where he sees the implementation of what he learned in his life, and I think the answer is pretty convincing:
“Everything I did in real life – related to cybersec – has been influenced partially or entirely by my experience in CTFs, it’s like a toolbelt you gain, and utilize in your day-to-day hacking routine.”
CTFs teach you attack vectors and techniques that are commonly encountered. This way, next time you get a hacking task, pentesting, or even red teaming, it’s likely just another “deja vu” from your hands-on security training!
How to start your way in CTF hacking competitions?
As prerequisites, it’s good to have prior computer science experience, especially programming. Other skills can come along the way, you just have to choose a path and start:
The Fast Way
“Go to ctftime.org, click the ‘Upcoming’ tab, pick a weekend event, register, and play. That’s it. You’ve just entered the game.”
The Smart Way
“Start with beginner-friendly platforms like picoCTF (where our guest started) or pwn.college. Work through the challenges and build up your problem-solving skills. Once you’re ready, join a team and start playing CTFs regularly.”
I also wanted to know how to solve challenges without relying on write-ups. If you’ve played CTFs before, you know the feeling: you spend hours trying, and eventually give up — only to open the write-up and realize you were so close. It feels like a small failure, like you didn’t think hard enough to do it alone. … But then he said:
“It’s the WRITEUPS. Take it from me: you will always need to READ THE WRITEUP!”
Sooo now you have your answer!
Apparently, it’s about practice and patience. You try with the challenge, read the write-up, and repeat; that’s your CTF learning process. And once you find a playing routine that excites you, stick to it and make it a habit🌼
To sum it up:
CTFs are more than games and challenges, it’s a lifestyle. You will struggle, you will sometimes lose your mind. But if you stick to it, it will pay you well, with the skills, community, and opportunities, it becomes worth it.
Most recruiters today value the CTF experience, typically if it’s a research lab focusing on a certain area! It is becoming a standard to ask about CTF, either as a prerequisite or at least as a profile booster, because it’s proof of real skills and passion!
So what are you waiting for? Start your journey today and share the results 😉
Are you already a player? Or a newbie to cybersecurity? Let us know in a comment!