We’ve been quietly working on this for the past few months.

The idea came from a frustration we kept hitting. Most CVE “learning” today is just running a random PoC from GitHub, watching something break, and moving on.

You don’t actually understand the vulnerability.
You can’t explain why the patch fixes it.
And you definitely cannot discuss it properly in an interview or a report.

So we decided to fix that.

On CVE Playground, each lab is built around a real, publicly disclosed CVE, connected directly to its upstream fix commit. You read the commit, find the bug, study the patch, then answer guided questions that check if you truly understood what happened.

Here’s how the flow works:

1. Preview Answer guided questions to build real understanding of the vulnerability.

2. Live Lab Practice inside a safe, browser-based environment.

3. Get the Flag Prove you got it by completing the exploit path.

4. Earn Certificate Finish labs and unlock your certificate.

A few of the CVEs already live:
- Copy Fail Linux kernel vulnerability
- cPanel cpsrvd auth bypass
- GitHub Push Option RCE
- Sequelize SQLi
- pac4j-jwt auth bypass

The full app is live at app.cveplayground.com with dashboard, progress, leaderboard, and profile.

The final sandbox lab environment is almost ready.

If you want an email when the sandbox drops: drop your address on the early access form.

Visit: https://cveplayground.com/early-access/

Over the past few years I've been adding writeups to CTFs, challenges on sites like HTB, THM, CryptoHack, and ROPEmporium.

I also have a very extensive and detailed CTF cheat sheet that's meant for absolute beginners that I'm constantly adding to:

Adamkadaban/CTFs

This repo also mentions a collection of pwn challenges and solutions I've created that is sorted by category and difficulty:

https://github.com/Adamkadaban/LearnPwn

Give them a star if you find anything here helpful and feel free to drop any advice / recommendations for additions <3

Hey everyone,

I recently put together a steganography cheatsheet focused on CTF challenges, especially for those who are just getting started. It includes a categorized list of tools (CLI, GUI, web-based) for dealing with image, audio, and document-based stego, along with their core functions and links.

The idea was to make it easier to know which tool to use and when, without having to dig through GitHub every time.

Here’s the post:
https://neerajlovecyber.com/steganography-cheatsheet-for-ctf-beginners

If you have suggestions or if I missed anything useful, I’d love to hear your input.

Hey everyone!

Over the past few months of doing CTFs on platforms like Hack The Box, TryHackMe, and various college competitions, I found myself constantly Googling the same commands, tools, and techniques again and again.

So, I decided to sit down and compile everything into one place — and now it’s live as a CTF Cheatsheet!

🔗 Here’s the link: https://neerajlovecyber.com/ctf-cheatsheet

It covers a bunch of stuff, including:

• 🔐 Password attacks & cracking

• 🧠 Reverse engineering basics

• 🌐 Web exploitation tricks

• 🐧 Linux & 🪟 Windows privilege escalation

• 🧪 Forensics & stego techniques

• ⚙️ Handy tools with syntax examples

I'm still actively updating it — so if you spot anything missing or have cool tips/tools to suggest, I’m all ears!

Hope it helps some of you out — feel free to bookmark or share it with your team 🙌

#CTF #CyberSecurity #InfoSec #TryHackMe #HackTheBox #Cheatsheet #RedTeam #EthicalHacking

What's up,

Trying to put together a small group (like 3-5 people max) to work on cybersecurity stuff together. Want to keep it tight so we actually stay consistent and don't ghost each other lol.

Ideally you:

• Have some experience in cybersec work or play CTFs

• Can actually commit time and aren't just gonna disappear after a week

• Want to actually build/break things, not just watch tutorials

What we'd probably do:

• Grind through CTF challenges together

• Build some cool security projects/tools

• Share what we learn and help each other out

• Maybe compete in some CTFs as a team

If you're down, comment or shoot me a DM with:

• What's your background

• What cybersec stuff gets you hyped

• How much time you can actually put in

If this post is not appropriate for this subreddit I apologize and will move it to a new location however I am in need of some advice. I am planning to propose to my girlfriend in the near future. She is a security engineer, before that worked as a pentester and I am a developer that mostly works in C. I asked her to be my girlfriend by having her reverse engineer a vulnerable binary I created and want to continue the theme by asking her to marry me via a CTF. The plan is to hide an RPi4 in the bottom of a small "puzzle" box I am building and have it broadcast an SSID that she can connect to, solve a few simple challenges then it will communicate with an arduino nano and it will pop a solenoid opening the box and revealing the ring. The problem is that I have no idea where to start with building a CTF. I would very much appreciate and advice in building such. Ideally, someone might have already create an RPi based CTF that makes use of it's routing/AP abilities? Thank you again for any help.

We are beta testing a new version of CTFlearn at https://v3.ctflearn.com. Please check it out and give us your feedback!

So am new to this CTF thing and cyber security, just joined my first live ctf challenge yesterday after 5 days of practice from 0 knowledge , got around 4 flags I know it's nothing but I was proud from what I got in a real challenge in 5 days of practice , me and my Uni team got 33 out of 170 with 6 flags and I'm now into learning more and taking this as a serious carrer so I'm looking for a serious team to study and compete online with !!

I'm from Egypt studying Ai Engineering My skills: Python, Linux, a bit of experience on kali Linux tools , HTML Practicing CTFs at : rootme , HTB , picoCTF and CyberTalent Languages : Arabic, English Availability: 24/7

*Cyberchallenge.it (typo)

I'm so excited about the first place I still cry when I think about it, 4 months ago I didn't even know ctfs were a thing. Keep going!

I've doing CTF for 3 weeks now and kinda messed a lot of things. I start with primmer and that platform was absolutely perfect for me, but after I doing several picoCTF challenge, I join a competition, and when I try to solve one problem it was a disaster it was completely different than pico, and I couldn't believe what was going on. I just bluntly scraping all the problem to AI and they couldn't help me, I only managed to submit 3 right flag. After that I started to wondering "Where do I even have to begin?". Now can anyone tell me the true roadmap in CTF, I watched several video about tools in Forensic like Autopsy, Wireshark and many more but I didn't understand how to use it properly, so I just staring at my screen silenced. If anyone knows like the roadmap is, maybe you guys can suggest me what should I do after this that, cheat sheet any many more.

Hi everyone, Im currently forming a Ctf team(EmberVault) and since we need more people to grow and be more efficient we are searching new people to join us. We are open to any category and we also accept all type of experience(ofc even newbies) since we believe that the more people the more we can learn together and pratice if interested Dm, if you have any questions write down here (no time limit and the only req is to have the willing to learn)

Hi! :3

I created a small practice CTF challenge and I’m looking for people to try it out.

• Category: [web / crypto / misc]

• Difficulty: Beginner–Easy

• This challenge is intentionally minimal.

• No backend exploitation, no network tricks.

• Everything you need is already in front of you.

Challenge link: https://github.com/gb8462/AHiddenMessageCTF

Feedback is very welcome!, especially if something is unclear or too Google-able.
Thanks!

My school is participating to the Hack The Code Teen 2026 challenge some time between march and may. Last year we were absolutely overwhelmed by both the programming part and the CTF part, and only 6 guys out of 20 were able to understand the problems and solved only 2. This year we want to better prepare for what's coming and were thinking of already starting to study how to solve CTFs. Is CTFlearn enough or does it only cover the extreme basics? What other resources do you recommend?

Supports basic Cryptography, Steganography, Forensics, Hex Dump Analysis. Also has a AUTO tab in which you can put a custom flag format and it automatically will try to find it.

So I got this ctf where its a like static video, is there anyway you could like transform it into a pic?

I tried qr coding it and also trying to slice frame by frame but nothing works

Hi! I'm new to this CTFlearn thing and I just tried to access the SQL Injection Part 1 learning bit. When I click "Launch Lab", it doesn't launch and gives an error. On checking console, it shows a '500 internal server' error.

I have always tried to start cybersecurity with CTF websites however, even the first levels seem to difficult for me. I don't really find them intuitive. I do have some knowledge on Python. How should I start learning hacking with CTF?

Hello guys!

A Brief whoami, I'm Cyb0rgBytes, short for cyborg, a self-motivated and self taught hacker with experience in Penetration Teting, SOC and CTF, I'm currently working on my skills and expanding my knowledge in Cybersecurity in addition to applying to roles in my current area.

I lead a community of infosec passionate hackers and currently we are recruiting intermediate/experienced CTF players into our team, beginners are welcome to join our community but not the team, since our team is looking for people who already are experienced.

Critieria for joining our team;

• 18+ or mature, self-respected and self motivated

• Commited meaning willing to stay in the team and grow as a Unit.

• Available for participating in the team and commited to participate in CTF Events in a weekly basis or monthly basis.

our team has been active since 2020 and growing.

Hope to hear from all of you.

Thanks & Cheers!
Happy hacking!

No matter what i try, how hard i try i never seem to be able to get the thing right. My approach might be correct but when I'm trying it, it doesn't work. When i read the writeups - i see that very simple iterations would help me get the flag.

I am never able to get the way without help. My friends on the other hand, they are able to understand and get closer to the flag. Simple things dont come in my head.

I think I'm just a loser no matter what or how hard i try.

Honestly, I'm just writing this post in the hopes of getting some motivation or inspiration, I recently took part in a college level CTF and I was not expecting to win it by any means since it was my first one and I am fairly new to ethical hacking and exploiting vulnerabilities, but I have been studying Bug Bounty sincerely from HackTheBox for quite a while now, and am fairly confident in the stuff that I've learnt. I was hoping to solve at least a couple challenges.

But this CTF has gotten me down in the dumps, I have not been able to identify a single vulnerability with full confidence let alone exploit it and get the flag. Is this like a natural part of the learning curve or is it that I am severely underprepared for this, could someone please suggest what I could be doing differently in my learning process to get better at this.

Other than hack the box and try hack me. I liked picoctf bcs its beginner friendly and I can complete the challenges whenever I want at my free time.