WHAT IS CTF (?)

CTF (Capture The Flag) is a type of information security competition that challenges contestants to find solutions or complete various tasks. These tasks range from hunting for information from Wikipedia or the internet to basic programming exercises to intermediates aimed at hacking your way into a server to retrieve data. In general, contestants will be asked to find certain text that has been hidden behind web pages, servers or in images. This text is usually referred to as the flag. Like many other competitions, the skill level or difficulty for CTF varies greatly between events. Some of the competitions are targeted at professionals with experience operating in cybersecurity teams, and some are targeted at students who are new to cybersecurity in order to hone their skills and increase their knowledge. For students, the prizes given are usually financial support for education for those who succeed in becoming champions in competitions, then for professionals, usually large cash prizes.

TYPES OF CTF (in summary)

According to CTF-time, CTF is divided into various types. In summary, the jeopardy style CTF provides a list of challenges and reward points for individuals or teams who successfully complete or find a challenge solution, then the group with the most points wins. Next, there is attack/defense style CTF, this type of CTF focuses on attacking the opponent's server and defending your own server. Usually this type of CTF is intended for those who are very experienced in the world of cybersecurity and this type of CTF is carried out in a specific physical location.

JEOPARDY CHALLENGES

CATEGORY	ABOUT
Web Exploitation	Usually Involves SQL Injection, Command Injection, Directory Traversal, XSS, Server Side Request Forgery, and Cross Site Request Forgery
Cryptography	XOR, Caesar Cipher, RSA, Stream Ciphers, Vigenere Cipher, Hashing Functions, Block Ciphers, Substitution Cipher.
Binary Exploitation	Common topics addressed by Binary Exploitation are Registers, The Stack, Buffers, Global Offset Table, Calling Conventions, Return Oriented Programming, Procedure Linkage Table, The Heap, Double Free, File Stream, vtable, tcache, Format String, LIBC, Shellcode, Double Fetch, GDB / any debugger tools.
Reverse Engineering	Usually involves Assembly, C , Disassemblers, and Decompilers.
Forensics	Forensics is a way to recover data left on a computer. there are tons of methods out there to find deleted, unsaved, or worse, secretly recorded data. An important part of Forensics is having the right tools and being familiar with file formats , EXIF data, WireShark, Steganography , and Disk Imaging.

FUN-FACT

1. CTF can be played as an individual or in a team.
2. It is known that many challenges do not require programming knowledge and only 
rely on problem solving skills and creative thinking.
3. CTF have 2 common type, namely Attack & Defense CTF and Jeopardy CTF.

LABS WRITEUPS

HACKTHEBOX

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PICOCTF

No.	Problems	Category	Website	Year	Points	Result
1.	Obedient Cat	General Skills	picoCTF	2021	5	✅ SOLVED
2.	Mod 26	Cryptography	picoCTF	2021	10	✅ SOLVED
3.	Wave a flag	General Skills	picoCTF	2021	10	✅ SOLVED
4.	Nice netcat...	General Skills	picoCTF	2021	15	✅ SOLVED
5.	Python Wrangling	General Skills	picoCTF	2021	10	✅ SOLVED
6.	Information	Forensics	picoCTF	2021	10	✅ SOLVED
7.	GET aHEAD	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2021	20	✅ SOLVED
8.	Insp3ct0r	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2019	50	✅ SOLVED
9.	where are the robots	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2019	100	✅ SOLVED
10.	Secrets	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2022	200	✅ SOLVED
11.	Local Authority	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
12.	Roboto Sans	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2022	200	✅ SOLVED
13.	Search Source	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
14.	Includes	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
15.	Inspect HTML	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
16.	morse-code	Cryptography	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
17.	unpackme.py	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
18.	Power Cookie	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2022	200	✅ SOLVED
19.	don't-use-client-side	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2019	100	✅ SOLVED
20.	picobrowser	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2019	200	✅ SOLVED
21.	logon	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2019	100	✅ SOLVED
22.	Client-side-again	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2019	200	✅ SOLVED
23.	Irish-Name-Repo 1	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2019	300	✅ SOLVED
23.	Irish-Name-Repo 2	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2019	350	✅ SOLVED
24.	Basic-mod1	Cryptography	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
25.	13	Cryptography	picoCTF	2019	100	✅ SOLVED
26.	Basic-mod2	Cryptography	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
27.	file-run1	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
28.	Cookies	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2021	40	✅ SOLVED
28.	credstuff	Cryptography	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
29.	Vigenere	Cryptography	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
29.	rail-fence	Cryptography	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
30.	substitution0	Cryptography	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
31.	buffer overflow 0	Binary Exploitation	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
32.	Packets Primer	Forensics	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
33.	St3g0	Forensics	picoCTF	2022	300	✅ SOLVED
34.	Transformation	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	2022	20	✅ SOLVED
35.	Enhance!	Forensics	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
36.	Eavesdrop	Forensics	picoCTF	2022	300	✅ SOLVED
37.	Sleuthkit Intro	Forensics	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
38.	Lookey here	Forensics	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
39.	Redaction gone wrong	Forensics	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
40.	file-run2	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
41.	patchme.py	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
42.	substitution1	Cryptography	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
43.	substitution2	Cryptography	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
44.	SQL Direct	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2022	200	✅ SOLVED
45.	SQLiLite	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2022	300	✅ SOLVED
46.	basic-file-exploit	Binary Exploitation	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
47.	Safe Opener	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
48.	Bloat.py	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	2022	200	✅ SOLVED
49.	Forbidden Paths	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2022	200	✅ SOLVED
50.	Web Gauntlet 2	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2021	170	✅ SOLVED
51.	Web Gauntlet	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2020 Mini	200	✅ SOLVED
52.	Fresh Java	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	2022	200	✅ SOLVED
53.	unpackme	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	2022	300	✅ SOLVED
54.	Some Assembly Required 1	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2021	70	✅ SOLVED
55.	Some Assembly Required 2	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2021	110	✅ SOLVED
56.	Some Assembly Required 3	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2021	160	✅ SOLVED
57.	jaWT Scratchpad	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2019	400	✅ SOLVED
58.	More Cookies	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2021	90	✅ SOLVED
59.	Wireshark doo dooo do doo...	Forensics	picoCTF	2021	50	✅ SOLVED
60.	Wireshark twoo twooo two twoo...	Forensics	picoCTF	2021	100	✅ SOLVED
61.	tunn3l v1s10n	Forensics	picoCTF	2021	40	✅ SOLVED
62.	Matryoshka doll	Forensics	picoCTF	2021	30	✅ SOLVED
63.	MacroHard WeakEdge	Forensics	picoCTF	2021	60	✅ SOLVED
64.	Trivial Flag Transfer Protocol	Forensics	picoCTF	2021	90	✅ SOLVED
65.	Disk, disk, sleuth!	Forensics	picoCTF	2021	110	✅ SOLVED
66.	Disk, disk, sleuth! II	Forensics	picoCTF	2021	130	✅ SOLVED
67.	Mind your Ps and Qs	Cryptography	picoCTF	2021	20	✅ SOLVED
68.	Web Gauntlet 3	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2021	300	✅ SOLVED
69.	Super Serial	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2021	130	✅ SOLVED
70.	Glory of the Garden	Forensics	picoCTF	2019	50	✅ SOLVED
71.	advanced-potion-making	Forensics	picoCTF	picoMini by redpwn	100	✅ SOLVED
72.	Milkslap	Forensics	picoCTF	2021	120	✅ SOLVED
73.	shark on wire 1	Forensics	picoCTF	2019	150	✅ SOLVED
74.	extensions	Forensics	picoCTF	2019	150	✅ SOLVED
75.	What Lies Within	Forensics	picoCTF	2019	150	✅ SOLVED
76.	m00nwalk	Forensics	picoCTF	2019	250	✅ SOLVED
77.	WhitePages	Forensics	picoCTF	2019	250	✅ SOLVED
79.	c0rrupt	Forensics	picoCTF	2019	250	✅ SOLVED
80.	like1000	Forensics	picoCTF	2019	250	✅ SOLVED
81.	WebNet0	Forensics	picoCTF	2019	350	✅ SOLVED
82.	crackme-py	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	2021	30	✅ SOLVED
83.	WebNet1	Forensics	picoCTF	2019	450	✅ SOLVED
84.	vault-door-training	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	2019	50	✅ SOLVED
84.	vault-door-1	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	2019	100	✅ SOLVED
85.	asm1	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	2019	200	✅ SOLVED
86.	shark on wire 2	Forensics	picoCTF	2019	300	✅ SOLVED
87.	Easy1	Cryptography	picoCTF	2019	100	✅ SOLVED
88.	caesar	Cryptography	picoCTF	2019	100	✅ SOLVED
89.	la cifra de	Cryptography	picoCTF	2019	200	✅ SOLVED
90.	Tapping	Cryptography	picoCTF	2019	200	✅ SOLVED
91.	Flags	Cryptography	picoCTF	2019	200	✅ SOLVED
92.	Mr-Worldwide	Cryptography	picoCTF	2019	200	✅ SOLVED
93.	waves over lambda	Cryptography	picoCTF	2019	300	✅ SOLVED
94.	miniRSA	Cryptography	picoCTF	2019	300	❌ UNSOLVED
95.	Stonks	Binary Exploitation	picoCTF	2021	20	✅ SOLVED
96.	Magikarp Ground Mission	General Skills	picoCTF	2021	30	✅ SOLVED
97.	Easy Peasy	Cryptography	picoCTF	2021	40	❌ UNSOLVED
98.	Surfing the Waves	Forensics	picoCTF	2021	250	✅ SOLVED
99.	CVE-XXXX-XXXX	Binary Exploitation	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
100.	File types	Forensics	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
101.	Sleuthkit Apprentice	Forensics	picoCTF	2022	200	✅ SOLVED
102.	PW Crack 5	General Skills	picoCTF	picoMini 2022	100	✅ SOLVED
103.	1_wanna_b3_a_r0ck5tar	General Skills	picoCTF	2019	350	✅ SOLVED
104.	GDB Test Drive	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
105.	Who are you?	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2021	100	✅ SOLVED
106.	m00nwalk2	Forensics	picoCTF	2019	300	✅ SOLVED
107.	Operation Orchid	Forensics	picoCTF	2022	400	✅ SOLVED
108.	Operation Oni	Forensics	picoCTF	2022	300	✅ SOLVED
109.	SideChannel	Forensics	picoCTF	2022	400	✅ SOLVED
110.	transposition-trial	Cryptography	picoCTF	2022	100	✅ SOLVED
111.	Bbbbloat	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	2022	300	✅ SOLVED
112.	RPS	Binary Exploitation	picoCTF	2022	200	✅ SOLVED
113.	clutter-overflow	Binary Exploitation	picoCTF	picoMini redPwn	150	✅ SOLVED
114.	Pitter, Patter, Platters	Forensics	picoCTF	picoMini 2020	200	✅ SOLVED
115.	Keygenme	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	2022	400	✅ SOLVED
116.	Pixelated	Cryptography	picoCTF	2021	100	✅ SOLVED
117.	buffer overflow 1	Binary Exploitation	picoCTF	2022	200	✅ SOLVED
118.	buffer overflow 2	Binary Exploitation	picoCTF	2022	300	✅ SOLVED
119.	x-sixty-what	Binary Exploitation	picoCTF	2022	200	✅ SOLVED
120.	spelling-quiz	Cryptography	picoCTF	picoMini	100	✅ SOLVED
121.	Shop	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	2021	50	✅ SOLVED
122.	speeds and feeds	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	2021	50	✅ SOLVED
123.	flag leak	Binary Exploitation	picoCTF	2022	300	✅ SOLVED
124.	function overwrite	Binary Exploitation	picoCTF	2022	400	✅ SOLVED
125.	ARMssembly 0	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	2021	40	✅ SOLVED
126.	Torrent Analyze	Forensics	picoCTF	2022	400	✅ SOLVED
127.	WPA-ing Out	Forensics	picoCTF	picoGym Exclusive	200	✅ SOLVED
128.	JAuth	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	picoGym Exclusive	300	✅ SOLVED
129.	ropfu	Binary Exploitation	picoCTF	2022	300	✅ SOLVED
130.	ARMssembly 1	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	2021	70	✅ SOLVED
131.	ARMssembly 2	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	2021	90	✅ SOLVED
132.	not-crypto	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	picoMini	150	✅ SOLVED
133.	gogo	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	2021	110	✅ SOLVED
134.	vault-door-3	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	2019	200	✅ SOLVED
135.	Here's a LIBC	Binary Exploitation	picoCTF	2021	90	✅ SOLVED
136.	vault-door-4	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	2019	250	✅ SOLVED
137.	wine	Binary Exploitation	picoCTF	2022	300	✅ SOLVED
138.	stack cache	Binary Exploitation	picoCTF	2022	400	✅ SOLVED
139.	Unsubscriptions Are Free	Binary Exploitation	picoCTF	2021	100	✅ SOLVED
140.	Local Target	Binary Exploitation	picoCTF	picoGym	100	✅ SOLVED
141.	Picker IV	Binary Exploitation	picoCTF	picoGym	100	✅ SOLVED
142.	Bit-O-Asm-1	Reverse Engineering	picoCTF	picoGym	100	✅ SOLVED
143.	More SQLi	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2023	200	✅ SOLVED
144.	SOAP	Web Exploitation	picoCTF	2023	100	✅ SOLVED
145.	VNE	Binary Exploitation	picoCTF	2023	200	✅ SOLVED
146.	hijacking	Binary Exploitation	picoCTF	2023	200	✅ SOLVED
147.	format string 3	Binary Exploitation	picoCTF	2024	300	✅ SOLVED

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LEARNING REFERENCES

https://github.com/apsdehal/awesome-ctf/blob/master/README.md
https://int0x33.medium.com/day-18-essential-ctf-tools-1f9af1552214
https://ctftime.org/ctf-wtf/
https://cryptokait.com/2020/09/02/taking-password-cracking-to-the-next-level/
https://wiki.skullsecurity.org/index.php/Passwords#Password_dictionaries
https://askubuntu.com/questions/866596/you-do-not-have-permission-to-extract-to-this-folder
https://jwt.io/introduction
https://blog.didierstevens.com/2020/12/14/decrypting-tls-streams-with-wireshark-part-1/
https://www.tutorialspoint.com/assembly_programming/assembly_conditions.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigen%C3%A8re_cipher
https://www.wattpad.com/437456092-codes-and-ciphers-maritime-signal-flags
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_maritime_signal_flags
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uuencoding
https://codewithrockstar.com/online
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Request_for_Comments
http://www.lingoes.net/en/translator/langcode.htm
https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/Do-Not-Track-DNT
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/X-Forwarded-For
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Forwarded-For
https://lite.ip2location.com/sweden-ip-address-ranges?lang=en_US
https://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/introduction_to_linux/linux_The_chmod_command.html
https://hackr.io/blog/sql-injection-cheat-sheet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_(Unix)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timing_attack
https://int0x33.medium.com/day-1-rop-emporium-ret2win-64bit-bb0d1893a3b0
https://0xrick.github.io/binary-exploitation/bof1/
https://www.imperva.com/learn/application-security/buffer-overflow/
https://www.youtube.com/c/CyberSecurityIPB
https://int0x33.medium.com/day-1-rop-emporium-ret2win-64bit-bb0d1893a3b0
https://ctf101.org/binary-exploitation/heap-exploitation/
https://infosecwriteups.com/into-the-art-of-binary-exploitation-0x000001-stack-based-overflow-50fe48d58f10
https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/blog/2022/05/04/what-is-a-blob-binary-large-object-can-it-be-tokenized/
https://owasp.org/www-community/attacks/XPATH_Injection
https://book.hacktricks.xyz/pentesting-web/xpath-injection
https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/66085/bit-flipping-attack-on-cbc-mode/66086#66086
https://www.felixcloutier.com/x86/mov
https://owasp.org/www-community/attacks/Format_string_attack
https://www.wireshark.org/docs/dfref/b/bt-dht.html
https://pequalsnp-team.github.io/cheatsheet/flask-jinja2-ssti
https://kleiber.me/blog/2021/10/31/python-flask-jinja2-ssti-example/
http://www.securityidiots.com/Web-Pentest/SQL-Injection/addslashes-bypass-sql-injection.html
https://ldap.com/
https://www.varonis.com/blog/the-difference-between-active-directory-and-ldap
https://github.com/payloadbox/xxe-injection-payload-list
https://github.com/payloadbox/sql-injection-payload-list
https://github.com/payloadbox/xss-payload-list
https://docs.docker.com/engine/security/seccomp/
https://www.die.net/search/?q=read&sa=Search&ie=ISO-8859-1&cx=partner-pub-5823754184406795%3A54htp1rtx5u&cof=FORID%3A9&siteurl=linux.die.net%2Fman%2F&ref=www.google.com%2F&ss=238j25750j4#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=read&gsc.page=1
https://github.com/swisskyrepo/PayloadsAllTheThings/tree/master/NoSQL%20Injection
https://gtfobins.github.io/#
https://github.com/TeamRocketIst/ctf-usb-keyboard-parser
https://www.techtarget.com/searchstorage/definition/RAID-5-redundant-array-of-independent-disks
https://www.forensicfocus.com/articles/making-complex-issues-simple-a-unique-method-to-extract-evidence-from-raid-with-lost-configuration/
https://netsecninja.github.io/dfir-notes/wmi-forensics/
https://github.com/davidpany/WMI_Forensics
https://blog.nviso.eu/2021/10/21/cobalt-strike-using-known-private-keys-to-decrypt-traffic-part-1/
https://blog.nviso.eu/2021/11/17/cobalt-strike-decrypting-obfuscated-traffic-part-4/
https://blog.nviso.eu/2021/11/03/cobalt-strike-using-process-memory-to-decrypt-traffic-part-3/
https://blog.didierstevens.com/2021/10/11/update-1768-py-version-0-0-8/
https://github.com/DidierStevens/Beta/blob/master/cs-extract-key.py
https://github.com/DidierStevens/Beta/blob/master/cs-parse-http-traffic.py
https://www.eecg.utoronto.ca/~amza/www.mindsec.com/files/x86regs.html
http://6.s081.scripts.mit.edu/sp18/x86-64-architecture-guide.html