Palo Alto offers $16,000 in looming CTF hack off

In eight days, Palo Alto is launching a capture the flag competition offering a total of US$16000 (£12340, A$21,245) for the first to complete the six trials.

The first to solve all six challenges will receive US$5000 (£3866, A$6640), and can score six lots of US$1000 (£773, A$1328) if they are also the first to complete each individual track. Each track in the CTF dubbed LabyREnth will test competitor's abilities in disciplines including reverse engineering, programming, and threat intelligence.

The tracks, designed by Palo Alto's @Unit42's Richard Wartell (@wartortell) will become increasingly difficult over time.

Wartell is a seasoned game master, having created the first FLARE-ON CTF in 2014 during his time at Mandiant, a competition undertaken by 7140 participants.

Team director Ryan Olson warns punters should expect challenges over many different mediums and architectures.

It is the first CTF for Unit42 and will end a month after kick off on 14 August.

A pre-game challenge has this week been solved; binary littered the CTF homepage which when decoded referenced a dusty meme of 4Chan fame:

“For reals yall. Has anyone really been far as decided to use XOR even go want to do look more like? You’ve got to even have been kidding me with this PAN. I’ve been further even more decided to use even go need to do look more as anyone can for Rules and even more than Prizes have been the Overviews. Can you really be far from Ordering even as decided half as much to use Digits go wish for that?”

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