VU Cyberthon and Black Cat Cyber Security (BCCS)
Thank you Lithuania and your partners for this experience.
Table of Contents
- About VU Cyberthon
- The BCCS Members and Experience (Before)
- The BCCS Members and Experience (After)
- Bebrief
1) Aboout VU Cyberthon
The aim of the VU Cyberthon is to inspire and encourage participants for independent analysis of cyber security problems and security methods, to develop critical thinking and creativity while solving CTF challenges.
Most notably, this is a CTF challenge hosted globally from the country of Lithuania and it was an absolute pleasure that we could have been a part of it.
For more information on the event, speakers, partners, or challenge write ups please visit:
Link: https://www.cyberthon.lt/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vucyberthon/
2) The BCCS Members and Experience (Before)
Collectively, we were extremely excited that the CTF lasted for 24 hours. It gave us each an opportunity to participate in the event as we each have our own individual daily responsibilities.
It really came as a spur of the moment action to attend the CTF and we didn’t know what to expect, but were looking forward to share our individual skills to contribute to jeopardy style CTF.
We each have participated in various CTF challenges but this is the first time we were able to work together as one.
BCCS Participants:
- Victor Fordham
- Blake Shipley
- LittleBear
- Justin Lewandowski
- Dante Mata
3) The BCCS Members and Experience (After)
We all had a combination feel of accomplishment and a very deep valley. While some of our frustration came from trying to find THE path for the flags, others were more technical.
The technical problems we face hindered a lot of progress and wasted valuable time. We believe it had to do with the file sizes and the location of the servers for the CTF event.
We ran into download errors, either with the network or the server which caused a simple 26GB download to spike our internet usage from trying to download it multiple times in order to complete the CTF.
Screen Shot courtesy of LittleBear
Here we had a successful CRC CTF challenge SS shared with the group.
Screen Shot courtesy of Victor
In one instance we managed to download an OVA only to run into issues when trying to launch it. There were no further instructions/hints on what exactly the OVA was for.
Screen Shot courtesy of Dante
There were other options to download the files, but the results were the same.
4) Debrief
In the end we learned to work together to define our strengths and weaknesses. We were not in control of all the variables in the CTF challenge, but we are moving forward learning from variables that we are able to control so that we may improve upon them.
It was an awesome experience and special thanks to the BCCS team!
