Black Alps CTF

CTF?

In the domain of information security, Capture The Flag (CTF) is a game-like competition where participants are required to attack and defend computer systems in a controlled environment and in a legal way. Various problem-solving tasks require from players knowledge in reverse engineering, web application analysis, cryptanalysis, forensics and exploit development among others.

There are mainly two types of CTF competitions:

• In Jeopardy-style competitions participants are given a number of tasks or problems in various categories and points are awarded for problem-solving with respect to the task difficulty. The ranking is established according to points obtained by the teams or individual players.
• In an Attack-defense competition participants are provided with vulnerable environments which they need first to analyse and patch. Afterward teams environments are interconnected and every team would try to exploit each other services and gain points. The team who gets compromised looses points.

Many CTF competitions are organised regularly online and locally. It is a good educational experience and a perfect way to learn and practice your skills in different security areas in real-world scenarios.

Contest details

Faithful to last editions (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2022) and to other major information security events, we wanted to offer to our participants a nice CTF event.

It was located at La Marive, in the main conference building, on the Friday Nov 3, 2023 from 6:45pm till 11:00pm.

This was a Jeopardy-style CTF meaning that participants will be required to solve challenges in different categories (binary analysis, exploitation, forensics, web).

There was challenges in different categories (Web exploitation, software exploitation, reverse engineering, cryptography, etc.) with different levels accessible to beginning, intermediate and advanced CTF-players.

Organizing partner

Participation and team composition

• The participation to the Black Alps CTF was open to everyone, conference participants and externals alike.
• The participation was free.
• People was able to participate individually or by team. We do not need to know the composition of the teams before the CTF. The final registration of yourself/your team was done at the beginning of the CTF.

Registration

• Number of participants was limited.
• Each participant should register themselves.
• Registration of each participant was free and mandatory.

Catering

Drinks and food were available at the Black Dinner this year! The event was open to everyone!

• A raclette was available (for free)
• Drinks - Coca-Cola, Ice tea, water was available.
• Beer: pression was available

Prizes

• The 5 top teams/players were awarded some cool prizes.

Further details

• Participate was only possible from our local network.
• Standard CTF rules apply, details were available during the contest.
• Take your own materials (laptop, Ethernet cable, etc.).

Please respect the guidelines:

• No network scan. Stick to challenge IPs.
• No attacks on other players.
• No voluntary Denial-Of-Service of CTF infrastructure.

Location and venue

The Black Alps CTF was held at the same place as the conferences.