Online Competitions

Upcoming Competitions:

  • NCL 
    • Individual Games: October 25-27
    • Team Game: November 8-10
    • Online
    • Capture the Flag
    • Beginner friendly

 

  • CNY Hackathon – November 9
      • In Person (transport provided)
      • Beginner friendly

 

  • Lockdown –  October 26
    • In-person (University at Buffalo)
    • Blue Team & Capture the Flag
    • Intermediate skill level

 

  • CCDC Qualifiers – Fall 2024
    • Virtual
    • Blue Team
    • Advanced skill level recommended

Here are some online wargames and CTFs that will give you the chance to practice many domains of cybersecurity in preparation for competitions.

picoCTF – FREE

Free computer security game created by security experts at Carnegie Mellon University. The game consists of a series of challenges centered around a unique storyline where participants must reverse engineer, break, hack, decrypt, or do whatever it takes to solve the challenge. The challenges are all set up with the intent of being hacked, making it an excellent, legal way to get hands-on experience.

Hack The Box – FREE

A free online platform to test and advance your skills in penetration testing and cybersecurity, much bigger than picoCTF. Many of it’s challenges are user-submitted, added a layer of community into the mix. There’s also more real world scenarios where you will actually have to hack into live machines in order to complete the challenge. Kali Linux is the recommended OS to do this on.

 

NCL (National Cyber League) – $35

A paid seasonal competition where you can practice skills we go over at meetings using the gymnasium (throughout the season), practice in the preseason game, compete in the individual game, and compete in the team game. The gymnasium is an excellent resource for practicing open source intelligence, password cracking, log analysis, network traffic analysis, and much more. If you are interested, attend an Infosec meeting or contact us at isc@syr.edu to learn more!