The 3713 hackers’ rule team from School No. 31 took first place earning 3,250 points. The runner-up was the Kartoshkodevochki (Potatogirls – Ed.) team from School No. 564 with 1,810 points and the abacaba team from Lyceum “Physico-Technical School” received 1,800 points, finishing third.
Neva CTF is an information security competition for school students of 8-11th grades. The contest welcomes teams of up to 4 people, with multiple teams allowed to represent one school. The competition is held in the format of CTF events, meaning that participants are required to study various systems, solve tasks, and attempt to capture flags, i.e. valuable yet insufficiently protected information. Once players steal the other team’s flag, they have to submit it to their server to earn points that will be featured in the overall standings. Participants can freely interact with flag systems since they are created specifically for each contest.
The tasks offered by the competition’s organizers are well suited for both beginners and experienced CTF players. This year, participants had six hours to tackle challenges in seven categories: Forensics, Pwn, Network, Stego, Web, Crypto, and Reverse.
“I found the tasks quite interesting, and I believe that doing something you’ve never done before is important and useful, especially if you’re planning to study at ITMO,” says Gleb Pakhomov from 3713 hackers’ rule.
Although the abacaba team confidently aimed for the second place by the end of the contest, Kartoshkodevochki managed to forge ahead at the last minute.
“I’d been puzzling over the first problem for far too long. Yet I finally figured it out right before the time was up. We got our 150 points and broke away by 10 points,” shares Ivan Glagolev from Kartoshkodevochki.
The winners received cups, certificates, and special prizes from the contest’s partners, as well as additional points for entering ITMO’s Bachelor’s programs. All participants got certificates and memorable souvenirs from the university.
Although Neva CTF is over and the names of the winners are announced, some of the contest’s tasks were left to be solved. The organizers of the event invite everyone to test their luck with the competition’s challenges. Sign up here using the code ITMONEVA. The tasks will be available till May 10. Explanation and solutions to the most intriguing and complex problems from the Neva CTF will be published on the contest's official website starting May 11.
