CyberShield Showdown CTF 2025 – September 13-14, 20-21

Countdown

The clock is ticking! Get ready to exploit, and capture flags.

**CTF begins in**

days
Hours
Minutes
Seconds

🥳 🎉 🎂

Test 1

Level Up Before the CTF

Whether you're a first-timer or sharpening your skills, this section will guide you through key resources to help you prepare, practice, and play smarter.

Learn the Basics

🔍 1. Information Gathering (Reconnaissance) 📡 2. Scanning & Enumeration 🛠️ 3. Exploitation Basics 🔓 4. Web Exploitation 🔐 5. Password Attacks 🧠 6. Linux & Windows Fundamentals 🧩 7. Binary Exploitation (Optional for Beginners) 📦 8. Using Common CTF Tools 🎯 9. CTF-Specific Skills

CTF 101

🔐 1. Cryptography 🌐 2. Web Exploitation 🧱 3. Reverse Engineering 💻 4. Binary Exploitation 🕵️ 5. OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) 📁 6. Forensics 🧩 7. Misc / General Skills

Tools of the Trade

🛰️ 1. Nmap 🌐 2. Burp Suite (Community Edition) 📂 3. Dirbuster / Gobuster 🔐 4. John the Ripper / Hashcat 🧪 5. Netcat (nc) 📡 6. Wireshark 🛠️ 7. CyberChef 🧮 8. Ghidra (or Binary Ninja / IDA Free) 🧵 9. Strings & Binwalk 🔧 10. Python & Bash Scripting

Join the Community

Test 1

Schedule

.

Red Teaming CTF

Day 1 – Saturday, September 13, ቅዳሜ, መስከረም 3

A Red Teaming CTF involves a full simulated attack against a network or system, similar to a real-world penetration testing scenario.

9:00 AM – 9:30 AM	Registration
9:30 AM – 9:45 AM	Opening & Keynote
10:0 AM – 10:30 AM	Introduction to the CTF Challenge and Rules
10:30 AM	Red Teaming CTF Begins
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM	Lunch Break
5:30 PM – 5:45 PM	Wrap-Up and Preview of Day 2

Day 2 – Sunday, September 14, እሁድ, መስከረም 4

10:00 AM – 10:15 AM	Day 1 Recap
10:15 AM – 12:00 PM	Red Teaming CTF Continues
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM	Lunch Break
4:00 PM	Red Teaming CTF End
4:15 PM – 4:45 PM	Judging & Evaluation
4:45 PM – 5:30 PM	Awards Ceremony
5:30 PM – 6:00 PM	Challenge Review Session – Attack Strategy: For this session, focus on a challenge where many teams were unable to successfully breach the defense. Discuss the defense setup, why certain attack strategies didn’t work, and what strategies could have been more successful. This could also be an opportunity to discuss various offensive tools and methodologies used in CTF competitions.
6:00 PM – 6:30 PM	Participant Presentation: An audience member explains their strategy for defending or attacking during a particular challenge. They could discuss their thought process, the tools they used, any obstacles they faced, and how they overcame them. This session provides valuable insight into real-world attack and defense scenarios, and allows for a peer learning experience.
6:30 PM – 6:45 PM	Closing Remarks

.

Incident Response CTF

An Incident Response CTF involves responding to a cybersecurity incident. Scenarios, logs, network captures, or system images are provided for analysis and remediation proposal.

Day 1 – Saturday, September 20, ቅዳሜ, መስከረም 10

9:00 AM – 9:30 AM	Registration
9:30 AM – 9:45 AM	Opening & Keynote
10:0 AM – 10:30 AM	Introduction to the CTF Challenge and Rules
10:30 AM	Incident Response CTF Begins
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM	Lunch Break
5:30 PM – 5:45 PM	Wrap-Up and Preview of Day 2

Day 2 – Sunday, September 21, እሁድ, መስከረም 11

10:00 AM – 10:15 AM	Day 1 Recap
10:15 AM – 12:00 PM	Incident Response CTF Continues
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM	Lunch Break
4:00 PM	Incident Response CTF End
4:15 PM – 4:45 PM	Judging & Evaluation
4:45 PM – 5:30 PM	Awards Ceremony
5:30 PM – 6:00 PM	Challenge Review Session – IR / Threat Hunting Strategy: For this session, focus on a challenge where many teams were unable to successfully breach the defense. Discuss the defense setup, why certain attack strategies didn’t work, and what strategies could have been more successful. This could also be an opportunity to discuss various offensive tools and methodologies used in CTF competitions.
6:00 PM – 6:30 PM	Participant Presentation: An audience member explains their strategy for defending or attacking during a particular challenge. They could discuss their thought process, the tools they used, any obstacles they faced, and how they overcame them. This session provides valuable insight into real-world attack and defense scenarios, and allows for a peer learning experience.
6:30 PM – 6:45 PM	Closing Remarks

.