I recently participated in LA CTF as a member of defpwn, the CTF team for SFU’s newly-formed cybersecurity club. This was the club’s first event together and most of our team’s first time encountering a CTF, hence we were all n00bs. Regardless, I think it was a good experience for everyone involved.
The event ran for 42 hours; however, we only met for the last 4 hours. Rather than work remotely and async, we met IRL synchronously to get to know each other and help others out if they needed a hand.
Out of nearly 1000 teams, we placed 444th - nothing to brag about (but at least we weren’t last!).
In the end, we solved 9/55 challenges (2 of which were the trivial welcome challenges). Of the 7 remaining challenges, I completed 3:
- crypto/big e
- crypto/Extremely Convenient Breaker
- misc/extended
I had hoped to contribute more than these three, but with the clock ticking, this was all I had in me. In any case, it’s a good baseline for future events to see how I improve!