Cybersecurity CTF challenge writeups and solutions — CYB101
Documenting my CTF solutions and methodology as an IT/Cybersecurity student.
Category: Trivia | Points: 1 Solution: honeytrap
How I solved it: I researched the phrase "Honesty is Best Policy" in a cybersecurity context and found that a honeytrap is a fake system set up to lure attackers and monitor behavior without risking real systems.
Category: Trivia | Points: 1 Solution: info security analyst
How I solved it: I Googled the most in-demand cybersecurity roles and cross-referenced with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which confirmed Information Security Analyst as one of the fastest-growing roles.
Category: Reconnaissance | Points: 1 Solution: Mersenne prime
How I solved it: I Googled the number and multiple results identified it as a Mersenne prime.
Category: Reconnaissance | Points: 1 Solution: read me txt
How I solved it: The challenge hinted at investigating a README file inside the project zip folder, which I opened and found the solution.
Category: Cryptography | Points: 2 Solution: sftly
How I solved it: Recognized it as a Caesar cipher and tried shifts from 1–25. The correct shift was 3.
Category: Cryptography | Points: 2 Solution: RandomMessageQ
How I solved it: Pasted the message into CyberChef using "From Base64" and decoded the output.
Category: Cryptography | Points: 2 Solution: flag{kiding_in_plane_sight}
How I solved it: Used the extract EXIF tool in CyberChef and decoded the image metadata to find the hidden flag.