This year’s c0c0n XIII was hosted virtually corresponding to the current global scenario and DOME CTF also followed suit. Hosting a CTF event completely online posed various challenges that we had to address in order to make sure that we could provide the best possible experience.
Conducting the CTF virtually allowed us the opportunity to open up the event to a wider audience and we wanted to live up to the expectations by setting up a really challenging event.
We opened the registrations about four weeks prior to the event and we received 282 team registrations in total. We also set up a Discord server to communicate effectively with the DOME CTF participants.
We knew we had to up the game and put in the work to come up with the CTF challenges. The challenges ranged across topics such as pwn, cryptography, malware, Android, forensic, reverse, hardware and much more. We wanted to make it as diverse as possible.
The game started at 11 am on 18th September and we decided to spring a little surprise on the registered teams. One hour prior, we send out emails to all the registered teams with a link to the CTF platform. But everyone was left trying to figure out where the token was that allowed them to enter the CTF platform. Because apparently, they didn’t receive it in the email. It was hidden in plain sight ;
It was hidden in the HTML code of the email. When you inspect the code, you can find “Registration Token” mentioned in it. All a participant had to do was register on the platform with that token.
So, only about 125 teams could figure this out and register on the CTF platform on time and then the competition started kicking in!
In total, we had set up 21 challenges including a base. The participants were able to complete 7 of them with Team Nemesis consisting of Asjid Kalam, Anwar Ayoob and Shahul K A coming out victorious with a total of 950 points after an intense 30 hour CTF challenge. Team Hades consisting of Mufeed VH, Abel Jacob George and Arjun Chandran put up a good fight and were level on 800 points with Team Nemesis until the very last half an hour before Nemesis cracked another challenge to race clear and be crowned champions.
Here are the writeups for the challenges that were part of DOME CTF 2020.
It was a real pleasure hosting a bunch of talented cyber security enthusiasts for DOME CTF 2020. Everyone put up a great show and possibly learned a lot along the way! Until next time!
