Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago
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Securing the Nation's Digital Infrastructure

What is a Capture the Flag (CTF)?

Cyber security is a high priority among countries and companies both big and small as cyber-attacks have been on the rise in recent years. In response to these attacks, security professionals and university students have been through rigorous training as to how hackers are able to get into computer systems and how to defend against them. TT-CSIRT is seeking to conduct a version of this training in secondary schools across Trinidad and Tobago called a Capture the Flag (CTF).

A capture the flag (CTF) competition is a special kind of cybersecurity competition designed to challenge its participants to solve cyber security problems and/or capture and defend computer systems. The CTF developed by TT-CSIRT is a Jeopardy!-style competition that involves multiple categories of problems, each of which contains a variety of questions of different point values and difficulties. Typical tasks are related to open source intelligence, networking, programming, applications, mobile, forensics, reverse engineering, cryptography and general IT and system administration. Individuals/Teams attempt to earn the most points in the competition’s time frame but do not directly attack each other.

A CTF is one of the best ways to challenge your expertise inside a safe, forgiving and collaborative environment, whether you are a student, enthusiast or security guru. Aside from the clear technical development benefits, CTFs also offer participants a great opportunity to work on their soft skills, such as communication, teamwork, time management, problem-solving and adaptability.