Pros V Joes CTF

The Pros vs Joes CTF is a live combat Capture The Flag event. The Pros are Information Security professionals or advanced in their knowledge of securing / compromising computers and networks. These professionals will help the Joes to improve their skills through the course of two days of attack and defend. On the first day, teams of Joes, captained by a Pro, protect their network from the Red Cell. On the second day, the Red Cell dissolves and joins the Joe teams, which then attack each other.

The game is completely virtual, players only need bring a laptop for connecting to the gaming environment via the Internet. Laptops will NOT be in the line of fire.

At the end of each day, there will be a debrief to reveal how compromises occurred, with discussion for how to better defend.

 

The schedule will be as follows:
Day1, 1st quarter – prep

  • Pro’s meet the Joe’s, give a short briefing of what to expect.
  • Joe’s are divided into equal sizes of up to 5 Blue teams, each team assigned 1 Pro to captain the team
  • The remaining Pro’s organize into a Red Team

Day 1, 2nd and 3rd quarters – live fire combat

  • Red Team attacks the Blue Teams of Joe’s and their Pro captains
    • Break into their systems
    • Steal flags and submit for points
  • Blue Teams defend
    • try to keep out Red Cell
    • maintain critical services
    • find integrity flags in their own environment to submit for points

Day 1, 4th quarter – post mortem

  • Red Team ceases fire
  • Red Team and Pro captains discuss with the Joe’s what happened, how the Joe’s can improve
  • Winners for Day 1 are announced
    • Blue Team – best defender, a combination of service uptime and least flags stolen
    • Red Cell – he who steals the most flags

Day 2

  • Red Team dissolves and the Pro’s are divided amongst the Blue Teams
  • Blue Teams attack each other, under the direction of the Pro’s and with their direct material assistance
  • Each Blue Team is trying to
    • Maintain their critical services
    • Break into the systems of other Blue Teams
    • Steal flags from the other Blue Teams
  • Winning team has the highest score (a combination of flags stolen, flags protected, and service uptime)

The environment to host this CTF is laced with various surpises to keep the game interesting.  The networks that the Blue Teams must defend will be a mix of Windows and Linux, with the typical Internet services (web, DNS, mail, etc) and a mix of obscure systems and services.  The flags will also be more complicated than last year,

Those interested in playing should register as either a Pro or a Joe, use the form below:

Registration