HACKvent 2022 Write-up

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Welcome to my HACKvent CTF competition write-up! I was fortunate enough to participate in this annual event for the seventh year. Each day in the lead-up to Christmas, a new cybersecurity challenge was released, testing my technical skills, problem-solving abilities, and time management as the challenges got progressively harder. Total points were only awarded to those who could solve the challenges within 24 hours – the last three challenges in the category “leet” within 48 hours.

I am thrilled to share that I solved 24 of the 25 challenges and 23 within the requested time frame this year, earning most of the points available. I completely skipped the challenge on day 24, as after 30 hours, nobody solved it, and I had yet to start with it. It was too much effort to tackle during the busy holiday season.

I want to extend a big thank you to all of the challenge authors, Compass Security, and especially Kuyaya, for his hard work in organizing this event and involving the participants in the decision-making process. I also want to thank my family and friends for their patience and understanding during the competition. I am excited to share my journey through this year’s competition with you, and I hope you enjoy reading my write-ups and learning from my experience.

When writing this blog post, I was first in the ranking as I was the only one who had solved the surprise challenge of day 25 till then.

Ranking, the 25th of December 20:00

Of course, this changed until the end of the competition, as other participants solved all the challenges in time. In the final ranking on the 31st of December 2022, I ended up in place #14.

Ranking, the 31st of December 23:59
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