Every year, SECUINFRA organizes an exciting Capture the Flag (CTF) event where our employees can put their IT security skills to the test. But what exactly is a CTF? In the world of IT security, it is a playful challenge: participants solve various security-related tasks and try to find so-called “flags” that confirm the successful completion of a task. Realistic attack scenarios are often simulated, which is an excellent way for a defensive company like SECUINFRA to broaden its view of current threat scenarios and improve its own skills.
This year, our senior cyber defense expert, Lukas Werthmanns, had the honor of leading the event. Thanks to his years of experience as a CTF player and organizer, Lukas was able to build a custom server that offered participants a wide range of challenging tasks. Using open source projects and his own developments – including a modified Docker plugin for the CTFd platform – Lukas was able to create an innovative and secure environment for the event. It was also a great opportunity to give something back to the open source community. Some of the tasks were developed in advance by our colleague Simon, which added to the variety of challenges.
The CTF took place over an entire weekend – from Friday to Sunday. A total of 15 employees took part, both individually and in teams of two. The tasks covered different areas that the participants had requested in advance. Categories such as web, forensics and pwn were represented. Tasks that did not fall into a clear area also provided variety. The challenges could be started and the flags submitted via a central server, with a scoreboard constantly displaying the current status. The result? An exciting neck-and-neck race that went late into the night as some participants literally hacked through the challenge.
We would especially like to congratulate the winners of this year’s event: Marius took first place, followed by Kaan & Julian in second place and Monika in third place. In recognition of their achievements, the winners received our exclusive SECUINFRA medals.
This event was not the first of its kind. Similar events were already held in 2021 and 2022. SECUINFRA will continue to run and continuously expand the CTF as a permanent institution under the leadership of Lukas Werthmanns.
We are already looking forward to next year – who will capture the flag then?
