Skip to main content

CTF Training Group

Capture the Flag (CTF) competitions are unique training events that provide technical exercises in a fun, collaborative competition environment.

The CTF training group is the first step to getting involved in the CSA club. This group will provide you with a basic understanding of a variety of cybersecurity topics within a fun, collaborative environment. Capture the Flag (CTF) competitions are opportunities for beginners to apply what they've learned in class and in our group meetings.

Meetings

We hold weekly training meetings each Friday at 5:00 PM in room 385. In each class, we will cover different cybersecurity topics found in CTF competitions, including web exploitation, cryptography, forensics, steganography, OSINT, binary exploitation, reverse engineering, and more. These meetings will help you to explore the basics of each cybersecurity specialty to help you learn what you like to do.

GitHub Repository

We have created a GitHub repository to store previous and current lesson plans from our weekly CTF training meetings. Each folder contains files, scripts, links, and more for that week's lesson. We've provided this resource so that new members can see old lessons, and lessons can be reviewed after the actual training hour.

Here is the link to the GitHub repository.

Monthly CTF Competitions

The purpose for these weekly training meetings is to prepare for monthly CTF (Capture the Flag) competitions that we will be participating in. A link to a Google Sheet to sign up for these monthly competitions is found in the GitHub repository. Teams can normally have up to 4 people, so in the sign up sheet, you can join a team with less than 4 people, or start your own team. You can even do it solo, but it's much more difficult and stressful.

CTFTime

CTFTime is a online platform that tracks results across many CTF's (think of it as an ESPN for CTFs). We have our own team listed on CTFTime that you can join. Click here for the link to sign up. It also has a calendar of various future CTFs if you want to participate in one outside of the club. If you do want to join one, reach out to Justin Applegate or Ian Cook so that we can get the result linked to our team.

Beginners

New to CTFs? Not sure how to start? We've provided a document for beginners that details how to get started, then you can go through each week's lessons! Just go to the Beginners page to get started!