Hi Rob, this message is in regards to the second challenge for the OSCP Voucher Contest! The topic I chose is broad, but is yet important in the infosec community, which is about Capture The Flag (CTF) challenges.

Capture The Flag (CTF) events in the cyber security community are competitions related to infosec in which participants are tasked to solve challenges to receive points.  The goal of a participant is to find a solution for a given task related to infosec.  While this description alone is broad within itself, there are many different categories of CTF challenges which is what makes it a unique concept! The two most common types of CTF challenges are jeopardy and Attack-Defense games. This brings me to my main point: CTF games are a fantastic (and legal) way to learn, develop infosec knowledge, and (in many cases) add a competitive edge to a game!

The reason why I am so passionate about CTF challenges, is that it makes for a great way to meet with others, exchange ideas, communicate, and learn about infosec in given realistic situations! Most of anything I know today comes from doing CTFs, specifically from local hacking conventions, picoCTF, HackTheBox, and many other platforms to expand my knowledge from experience. As for myself, when I started doing HackTheBox on a daily basis, I learned I’ve learned so much from the basics (such as port scanning) to many variances of exploitation (such as sqli injection and SUID privilege escalation) on both Windows and Linux environments. Without a shadow of doubt, I vouch for those new to infosec to try doing CTFs to practice for exams, learning, and even for the sake of having fun!

Going onward with beginners up to any level in infosec, the best way (in my opinion) to learn about computers and especially cyber security, is to learn by struggling, and not being afraid to ask questions. I face these occurrences very often where I am struggling in a CTF, as well as many gifted and talented cyber security professionals, which is why I love to help others at any time possible! Though this is unrelated to CTFs, my job after school is to teach kids programming (mostly javascript) and help them understand why code works! I appreciate this system of helping others and giving back to the community because other like minded people are able to learn from each other, and, in turn, exchange ideas as well as knowledge to create a stronger community in cyber security and beyond!

In all, CTFs are not just competitions, but a way to give back and help each other learn from our experiences!

Thank you for taking the time to read this!

Best regards,