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You are here: Home / TAMUctf

TAMUctf

TAMUctf
TAMUctf is a jeopardy-style cybersecurity capture the flag competition built and run by fellow Texas A&M Students. The competition has been designed to have challenges accessible to newer players as well ones that will keep more experienced players busy. So if you are just getting into cybersecurity or have been playing CTFs for a while, TAMUctf will be a great opportunity to learn new cybersecurity skills!
 

Prizes are as follows (TAMU students only)

Individual Prizes

  1. 1st Place: VOUCHER + HTB + T-SHIRT
  2. 2nd Place: VOUCHER + HTB + T-SHIRT
  3. 3rd Place: VOUCHER + T-SHIRT
  4. 4th Place: T-SHIRT
  5. 5th Place: T-SHIRT

Team Prizes

  1. 1st Place: VOUCHER + HTB + T-SHIRTs
  2. 2nd Place: HTB + T-SHIRTS
  3. 3rd Place: T-SHIRTS

Additional prizes graciously sponsored by TAMU DCLDP, the Defense Cyber Leader Development Program! (Must be a TAMU undergraduate student):

  • For each undergraduate class year, the top TAMU student competitor (regardless of team status) will win a $2000 scholarship
  • For each undergraduate class year, the 2nd place TAMU student competitor (regardless of team status) will win a $1000 scholarship
  • For each undergraduate class year, there will be 2 additional prizes of $500 randomly chosen for TAMU student competitors (regardless of team status)
The competition is open to public teams (individual or teams of up to 3 players). The entire competition will be all online as well so you will be able to compete from anywhere on campus or even at home.
 
The CTF difficulty ranges from easy-medium challenges to hard challenges.
 
Click here for past TAMUctf challenges and writeups.
 

What is a CTF?

Capture the Flag (CTF) is a special kind of information security competition. There are three common types of CTFs: Jeopardy, Attack-Defense and Mixed.
 
Jeopardy-style CTFs (TAMUctf) has a series of questions (tasks) in a range of categories. For example, Web, Forensic, Crypto, Binary Exploitation or something else. Teams or individuals can gain points for every solved task. There are more points for more complicated tasks usually. The team or individual with the most points when the game is over is the CTF winner. Famous example of such CTF is Defcon CTF quals.

Attack-defense is another interesting kind of competition. Here every team has their own network(or only one host) with vulnerable services. Your team has time for patching your services and developing exploits usually. Then, organizers connect participants of the competition and the wargame starts! You should protect own services for defense points and hack opponents for attack points. Historically this is a first type of CTFs, everybody knows about DEF CON CTF – something like a World Cup of all other competitions.

Mixed competitions may vary possible formats. It may be something like wargame with special time for task-based elements (e.g. UCSB iCTF).

CTF games often touch on many other aspects of information security: cryptography, stego, binary analysis, reverse engineering, mobile security and others. Good teams generally have strong skills and experience in all these issues.

If you have any questions feel free to contact the development team at ctf@tamu.edu.

2022 TAMUctf Dates

START: Friday, April 15, 2022 at 12:00 PM CST

END: Sunday, April 17, 2022 at 12:00 PM CST

TAMUctf Discord
Registration

Texas A&M Cybersecurity Center

phone: (979) 845-7398
email: cybersecurity@tamu.edu

200 Discovery Drive, Suite 105
4254 TAMU
College Station, TX 77843-4252

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