Today and tomorrow I'm competing in the Metasploit Community CTF -- a hacking competition!
What is a CTF?
A CTF (Capture The Flag) hacking competition is one where attackers try to break into systems and locate pieces of data which they can then submit to earn points on a leaderboard (all legal).
The competition is a difficult challenge -- I'm quite new to hacking, but I'm definitely learning from it. My team is currently in the roughly 75-85 range out of 1000 teams!
Hacking doesn't necessarily require any programming knowledge in the beginning--it is very useful though, and you will undoubtedly pick up programming along the way if you decide to start competing in hacking competitions. A great way to get started is to start trying out some previous capture the flags, such as the PicoCTF, a great beginner challenge where you can play either the 2018 or 2017 CTFs. If you get stuck or want to learn more, watch some videos on solutions by people like John Hammond (who has a series based around solutions for the aforementioned PicoCTFs) and Live Overflow, which is another great hacker.
- All of this hacking is ethical -- and can lead to some great jobs; pentesters and ethical hackers are very in-demand jobs right now!
Well, the competition's still going as I'm writing this post -- so I'd better get back to solving some problems and finding some flags!