Capture the Flag

Capture the Flag - Lower Level (Secondary Schools)
Georgia Cyber Center, Hull McKnight Building, Virtual World

0800 – 1000: students are assigned CTF leaders and conduct training. 
1000 – 1400: students participate and compete for the CTF challenge. 

The AFCEA CERTS Middle/High School Capture the Flag (CTF) Competition is a 4-hour, Jeopardy-Style competition for aspiring cyber and cybersecurity professionals. This competition is a learning tool that will measure the participant's current familiarity with various cybersecurity topics and will further sharpen the tools they have learned through education or self-learning. The CTF provides opportunities to share ideas amongst team members and with other teams, promoting the concept of continual learning for the students.

The Jeopardy-style CTF is similar to the actual Jeopardy game as the scoreboard looks like a Jeopardy board with different categories and point values. In this competition, teams are not trying to attack each other. They are instead focused on the challenge at hand depending upon what category is selected.  The categories for the competition are Cryptography, Steganography, Physical Security, Reverse Engineering, Forensics, Networking and Scanning. Some of the challenges can be done against a main server that was developed for the CTF and the flag is inputted into the CTF scoreboard to get points for the team. A timer is used to start and stop the CTF and once the timer finishes, the game is over. As stated above, the competition will last 4 hours. The team with the most points at the end wins.  Awards will be presented following completion of winner notification.

Instructors

Thomas Barnes, Director, Strategic Cyber Operations Plans and Programming, Parsons
Brett Hite, Senior Software Engineer, Parsons
Nicholas Jackson, Cyber Thaumaturgy Director, Parsons
Sharon Martin, Senior Systems Analyst, Parsons

8:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. 

Capture the Flag - Upper Level
Georgia Cyber Center, Hull McKnight Building, Virtual World

AFCEA CERTS Military/Collegiate Capture the Flag (CTF) Competition

The AFCEA CERTS Military/Collegiate CTF Competition is a 4-hour, Jeopardy-Style competition for aspiring and seasoned cyber and cybersecurity professionals. This competition is a learning tool that will measure the participant's current familiarity with various cybersecurity topics and will further sharpen the tools they have learned through education, training or self-learning. The CTF provides opportunities to share ideas amongst team members and with other teams, promoting the concept of continual learning for the Soldiers and students.

The Jeopardy-style CTF is similar to the actual Jeopardy game as the scoreboard looks like a Jeopardy board with different categories and point values. In this competition, teams are not trying to attack each other. They are instead focused on the challenge at hand depending upon what category is selected.  The categories for the competition are Cryptography, Steganography, Physical Security, Reverse Engineering, Forensics, Networking and Scanning. Some of the challenges can be done against a main server that was developed for the CTF and the flag is inputted into the CTF scoreboard to get points for the team. A timer is used to start and stop the CTF and once the timer finishes, the game is over. As stated above, the competition will last 4 hours. The team with the most points at the end wins. Some teams will be remote.  Awards will be presented following completion of winner notification.

Instructors:
Thomas Barnes, Director, Strategic Cyber Operations, Parsons
Brett Hite, Senior Software Engineer, Parsons
Nicholas Jackson, Cyber Thaumaturgy Director, Parsons
Sharon Martin, Senior Systems Analyst, Parsons

Thank you to our Capture the Flag sponsors!