Capture the flag (cybersecurity)

It was first developed in 1996 at DEF CON, the largest cybersecurity conference in the United States which is hosted annually in Las Vegas, Nevada.

In the Jeopardy format, participating teams must complete as many challenges of varying point values from a various categories such as cryptography, web exploitation, and reverse engineering.

[6] There are many examples of CTFs designed to teach cybersecurity skills to a wide variety of audiences, including PicoCTF, organized by the Carnegie Mellon CyLab, which is oriented towards high school students, and Arizona State University supported pwn.college.

[10][11] CTFs have been included in undergraduate computer science classes such as Introduction to Information Security at the National University of Singapore.

They are often included as part of the curriculum for cybersecurity courses, with the NSA organized Cyber Exercise culminating in a CTF competition between the US service academies and military colleges.

[20] Many CTF clubs and teams are associated with universities, such as the CMU associated Plaid Parliament of Pwning, which hosts PlaidCTF,[4] and the ASU associated Shellphish.

[22] In 2023, the US Space Force-sponsored Hack-a-Sat CTF competition included, for the first time, a live orbital satellite for participants to exploit.