What
Fall CTF is a 6-hour hacking competition for UIUC students hosted by SIGPwny. UIUC students of all backgrounds are welcome, including beginners! There will be challenges related to web hacking, reverse engineering, binary exploitation, and more! Plus, free food, free swag, and companies! Come learn and have fun with us!
When/Where
September 23rd, 2023
12–6 PM
Campus Instructional Facility 3039
Rules
- No sharing flags or solutions.
- No attacking infrastructure (brute force is not allowed).
- No sabotaging other teams.
- Teams are limited to two players each.
- Unless specified otherwise, the flag format is `sigpwny{*}`.
Schedule
| 12:00PM | - | Opening Ceremony |
| 12:15PM | - | CTF starts |
| 1:00PM | - | Pizza time! 🍕 |
| 6:00PM | - | CTF ends |
| 6:15PM | - | Closing Ceremony |
Divisions
The competition is divided into a Beginner and Advanced division to fairly distribute prizes. There are no differences in challenges or challenge difficulty between divisions—all challenges are designed to be approached by beginners.
Beginner Division
The beginner division is intended for underclassmen students who do not have much experience with CTFs, cybersecurity, or even computer science! We require teams with experience to compete in the Advanced division instead.
Advanced Division
If either you or your teammate have taken CS 341 (previously CS 241), ECE 391, or have played in three or more CTFs, then your team should be registered in the Advanced division. If you have some experience or would like to compete in the Advanced Division, teams can opt into the Advanced division! Otherwise, teams will play in the Beginner division.
Prizes
We are thrilled to offer prizes to the top-placing teams at Fall CTF 2023! We will be offering winning teams a selection of the following:
- 3x O.MG Plug + Programmer (thank you to Hak5!)
- 1x Bash Bunny
- 2x YubiKey 5C NFC
- 2x Pinecil Soldering Iron
- 4x Sparrows Tuxedo Lock Pick Sets
- 6x Binary Ninja Personal licenses (thank you to Binary Ninja!)
- 2x NordVPN Standard (1 year)
Additionally, all digital prizes (Binary Ninja licenses or NordVPN) will come with PWNY SOCKS!
Prize Distribution
Each winning team may select two prize options with the following priority:
- 1st place Advanced Division
- 1st place Beginner Division
- 2nd place Advanced Division
- 2nd place Beginner Division
- 3rd place Advanced Division
- 3rd place Beginner Division
- 4th place Advanced Division
- 4th place Beginner Division
- 5th place Advanced Division
- 5th place Beginner Division
Disclaimer: SIGPwny does not condone illegal activities by distributing these prizes. They are intended for educational purposes only.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: I need help! How can I get it?
A: We have a Discord bot ticket system set up to handle questions and provide support. Join our Discord and locate the Fall CTF 2023 "ask-for-help" channel. You will then be able to fill out a ticket and we can help you. Otherwise, you can ask anyone wearing a green lanyard in-person!
Q: What is a CTF?
A: CTF is an acronym for "capture-the-flag," which in the context of the cybersecurity field are competitions where teams solve security-related challenges to find a flag (usually a string of text). The flag can then be submitted to the competition platform for points, and the teams compete against each other for the most points!
Q: How are tie-breakers determined?
A: The leaderboard is sorted first by the team with the most points. If teams have the same number of points, then the team who submitted their most recent flag earlier wins the tie-break.
Q: How do I form a team?
A: By the day before the competition, we will be opening team registration on our competition platform. Feel free to find your team partner beforehand. We will also have multiple opportunities before and during the event to find and form teams!
Q: Do I need to bring a laptop?
A: We highly recommend bringing a laptop running Windows + WSL, Mac, or Linux, otherwise you will not be able to solve the challenges yourself. Only one person on your team will need to submit flags.
Q: I heard that there will be companies present. Do I need to dress up or prepare a resume?
A: We do not require a dress code and the expectation is that most people will be dressed casually. We will be offering a resume book to our sponsors and a resume PDF upload form will be provided during the event. If you need help preparing a resume, feel free to ask for advice in our Discord or take advantage of campus career resources!