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Team I'm not a robot 'grabs the flag' during SURFcert's Capture the Flag 2024
During this edition, 34 teams competed against each other in a series of challenging cybersecurity tasks, spread across categories such as forensics, binary, cracking, crypto and more. To capture the CTF gaming flag, teams had to score as many of the 10,750 points as possible within six hours. Teams that were the first to solve a question and submit the flag in the scroreboard received additional points for this.
"The great thing about the SURFcert CTF is that you can solve the challenges with so many unique people and their perspectives, there is so much room to learn from each other."
A well-deserved victory
Photo: Sander van de Geijn
During the race, team I'm not a robot led for a long time. Followed by TU Delft CTF Team. Third place changed regularly. In the last half hour, the competition switched to "freeze mode": the scoreboard was no longer updated live, keeping the exact score secret until the end. So it remained exciting until the last minute.
When the clock ran out and the results were revealed, team I'm not a robot (6,990 points) emerged as the outright winner. They got to take the CTF game flag, followed by team TU Delft CTF Team (6,153 points) in second place and team CTF Team TU Delft (4,583 points) in third place.
"The challenges are at all sorts of levels, allowing the less experienced and veteran colleagues to have their say"
Friday the thirteenth
This edition also had a focus on interactive tasks, immersing participants in realistic cybersecurity scenarios. It allowed participants to test not only their technical skills, but also their ability to cooperate and think strategically under pressure.
The theme this year was "Friday the 13th", with black cats and Jason (from the film) abounding in almost all questions. Squealing cats also sounded from the speakers with regularity.
"We follow all kinds of black cats to a Christmas tree but we still don't have a Flag"
About SURFcert
Students, lecturers and researchers benefit from a secure online environment. SURF therefore offers various privacy and security services that help in this regard. One of those services is SURFcert. SURFcert's experts offer 24/7 support in case of security incidents.