Beginner series

Basics

Let's start with what you'll need to solve this set of challenges

  • Basic programming ability
  • An environment with docker and python installed

What exactly will you be doing in this series of challenges?

Included are 4 beginner challenges attacking symmetric cryptography, ie cryptography where both you and your partner share a secret key. This type of encryption is what handles most secure connections between you and a server because it's fast and you only need to exchange a key to get started.

This series will attack a number of (relatively) modern symmetric encryption methods, showcasing how minor flaws or mistakes in implementations of these methods can result in a perfectly secure encryption becoming trivial to break!

These challenges were originally featured in a local CTF Maple Bacon put on for UBC students, if you want similar stuff for other categories, check out our challenge repo at ubcctf/sapling-ctf-2022

Note: The later challenges have spoilers for earlier challenges, so be careful! Don't skip ahead!!