FAUST CTF 2025

Facts

Once again, the competition will work in classic attack-defense fashion. Each team will be given a Vulnbox image to host itself and VPN access. You will run exploits against other teams, capture flags and submit them to our server.

The service decryption password will be released at 2025-09-27 12:00 UTC. The actual competition will start at 13:00 UTC and run for eight hours.

Prizes

Thanks to our sponsors, we can again provide nice prize money:

• First place: 1024 €
• Second place: 512 €
• Third place: 256 €

Additionally, for each service the first team to exploit it, submit a valid flag and provide a write-up will win 64 €.

Please check our rules page for information on payout restrictions.

Qualifier for the "Deutsche Hacking Meisterschaft"

FAUST CTF is proud to be a qualifier for the Deutsche Hacking Meisterschaft (DHM), offering top teams from the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) a chance to compete in this prestigious event. The highest-ranking DACH team from FAUST CTF will secure a spot in the DHM, which is a 6-person team competition, bringing together the best talent in cybersecurity from across the region.

The DHM qualification process is split into two paths: half of the participants earn their spot through the CSCG (Cyber Security Challenge Germany), an individual competition lasting for two months, while the other half qualify through team-based events like FAUST CTF. The winning DACH team should contact dhm@nfits.de to confirm their qualification and receive further instructions for DHM participation.

News

Vulnbox update

Due to some last minute bugfixes, we have prepared a new vulnbox. The vulnbox download files have been replaced. The sha256 hashes for the new files are:

• 4aedc30b159b9f0dbb6734cd8c26fa1b0ba7cf64317f0053b92bbdb8b12ca79a for the OVA container
• d55bd4cdec58fb41985163ba2b63505c5522945ad3157ad03e9037a0263c6412 for the QCOW2 image

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Vulnbox Download

The vulnbox is ready! You have these download options:

• An OVA container tested with VirtualBox
• A QCOW2 image tested with libvirt/KVM

To verify the integrity of your download, you may check the SHA256 sums.

As stated in the rules, the decryption password will be released at 2025-09-27 12:00 UTC via email and Discord, and thereafter also here. Please make sure you can run the testbox and connect to the VPN before the CTF.

Testing Vulnbox

Testing Vulnbox images are available. On first login, the Vulnbox will ask you for some information and configure itself properly. You can log in as root using any of the following ways:

• Use SSH with the generated random password (may need port forwarding, for the NAT Network)
• Connect to the serial port of the VM (may need configuration)
• Use the graphical console of your virtualization software - not recommended if you want to deploy SSH-Keys or configure VPN.
• When hosting on a cloud provider, chances are that you can enter your SSH-Key when creating the VM (cloud-init is installed).

If you run into problems with the setup, try our suggestions from Basic Vulnbox hosting.

We provide two options for download:

• An OVA bundle tested with VirtualBox
• A QCOW2 image tested with libvirt/KVM

To verify the integrity of your download, you may check the SHA256 sums.

Both images are identical, so use the one that fits your needs. The serivces inside are located in `/srv` and are encrypted with the password test.
To decrypt and start them, use the command /srv/extract-services.py /srv/testbox_services.tar.xz.gpg.

Note: Testbox and Vulnbox can not be connected to the game VPN at the same time, so make sure to shutdown the Testbox when the real Vulnbox is released.

Registration open

You can now head over to the Registration page to sign up for the competition.

Date is released

We are happy to announce, that the FAUST CTF 2025 will take place on 2025-09-27 at 12:00 UTC. Registration will open soon.

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