Skills
Throughout your next few years here at Alabama and your career, that is if you decide to pursue a career in Cyber Security, you are going to be competing at some point. Competitions are a great way to show off your skills, see if you can think outside the box, and learn something new. When it comes to Cyber Security, you will never know everything. Always keep an open mind and be willing to listen to what others have to say. A majority of the time they know something that you don't know and vice versa.
When learning about competitions you will probably hear terms thrown out such as defense, offense, and CTF. Defense refers to hardening systems and trying to prevent others from breaking into your machine. Offense refers to finding vulnerabilities and exploits in machines that will help you break into the machine and gain full control. CTF refers to capture the flag competitions which will test your skills across a variety of Cyber Security topics. CTFs are mainly difficult because they involve topics that are so vastly different from each other that it is very hard to be advanced in each and every one.
Capture the flag events are a lot of fun. They test your skills across 5 main topics. These topics are Forensics, Cryptography, Web Exploitation, Reverse Engineering, and Binary Exploitation.
Check out each individual CTF topic's directory to learn more about them and find out which tools you can be using right now to help you with solving CTF challenges!
Different topics you might come across in a CTF event include:
Forensics
Cryptography
Web Exploitation
Reverse Engineering
Binary Exploitation
When you get to be very competitive, it is recommended that you specialize in a single topic and the rest of the members of your team do the same. Obviously, everyone chooses a different topic. This doesn't mean that you only have to know about that single topic, it just means that you should have the most knowledge when it comes to solving those particular problems. You and the rest of your team should meet on a regular basis, sharing new information that you found, and teaching everyone at least the basics of your topic. There will be times where you will get stuck, and if you are the only one that knows anything about that subject, then how are your teammates going to be able to help you? You might be thinking right now, "well if I, the master of web exploitation, get stuck on a problem, then how are my teammates going to be able to help me? I know way more than them.". I have many answers to this one. Maybe you didn't get enough sleep the night before and your brain is a little foggy. Your teammate can remind you of a tip or trick you showed them in a previous meeting that wasn't on your mind at the moment. Maybe it is your first competition and you're so nervous that you just feel like you forgot everything. Bouncing around ideas with your teammates can help you remember what it was that you just briefly forgot.
When it comes to learning and practicing for competitions, offense and defense can be considered mission sets. There are also skill sets which get brought up in CTFs. Those skill sets can be applied to both defense and offense. So mainly, when studying for CTFs, don't think that the skills you are learning can only be used for CTFs and nothing else.
Some Helpful Websites:
- Learning Guides – https://picoctf.com/resources
- CTF Field Guide – https://trailofbits.github.io/ctf/
- Over the Wire – http://overthewire.org/wargames/
- Capture the Flag 101 – https://ctf101.org
- Collection of CTF info – https://github.com/apsdehal/awesome-ctf/blob/master/README.md
- List of practice sites – https://www.sjoerdlangkemper.nl/2018/12/19/practice-hacking-with-vulnerable-systems/