I’m super excited to share my experience from DownUnderCTF 2024. This was my first Capture the Flag (CTF) event, and I loved it! The event was well-organized, and the beginner challenges were just right in terms of difficulty, making it a fantastic learning experience.
What is DownUnderCTF? Link to heading
DownUnderCTF is a world-wide Capture The Flag (CTF) competition targeted at Australian and New Zealand secondary and tertiary students. It started as a collaboration between 13 University Cyber Security societies around Australia and has now expanded to include participants from New Zealand. This makes it the largest CTF competition in Australia and New Zealand. For more information, you can visit their website.
Team Performance Link to heading
Our team, Hague Hackers, did a great job, finishing in 124th place out of 2132 teams with a total of 2522 points. Here’s a look at our team’s category breakdown:
Personal Performance Link to heading
As a member of Hague Hackers, I am proud of my contributions. I scored 878 points and solved 8 significant challenges during the competition. My score steadily increased as I tackled progressively harder challenges. While I started with the basics, the more advanced challenges posed difficulties for me and the rest of the team.
Challenges Solved Link to heading
Here are the challenges I solved, along with their categories:
- Number Mashing - Rev
- Sounds Nice - Hardware
- They’re Making Decoys - OSINT
- Bad Policies - Forensics
- Zoo Feedback Form - Web
- Sun Zi’s Perfect Math Class - Crypto
- Parrot the Emu - Web
- TLDR Please Summarise - Misc
The Journey Link to heading
The CTF lasted for 48 hours, starting on Friday, July 5, 2024, at 9:30 AM UTC and ending on Sunday, July 7, 2024, at 9:30 AM UTC. During the initial hours, we were able to solve several beginner and intermediate challenges, which boosted our confidence and points. However, as the competition progressed, we encountered more advanced challenges that were significantly harder to crack.
One particular challenge, DUCTF, which fell under the “hardware & crypto” category, remained unsolved by any team during the competition. This challenge was especially tough and highlighted the areas where we need to improve for future competitions to be able to beat others.
Top 3 Teams Link to heading
Here are the top 3 teams from the competition:
- idek - 11813 points
- thehackerscrew - 11595 points
- Superflat - 9748 points
Conclusion and Future Plans Link to heading
Overall, DownUnderCTF 2024 was a rewarding experience that provided immense learning opportunities. It was great to see our progress over time, even though we couldn’t solve some of the more advanced challenges.
We are already looking forward to the next CTF event and plan to improve our skills further. Stay tuned! I’ll be posting detailed write-ups on each of the challenges I solved in the coming weeks. These write-ups will include step-by-step solutions on how I solved each one.
Thanks for reading!