2024 Magnet Virtual Summit CTF winners and another chance to play!
Hi, all! This is Jessica Hyde, and I am so excited to share the winners from the Magnet Virtual Summit 2024 Capture The Flag event, along with the challenges, community write-ups, and the next challenge.
The Magnet Virtual Summit 2024 CTF was another exciting competition! We had over 1350 people register for the CTF and 491 folks solved at least one question.
We’re happy to announce the winners:
- First place: Madi Brumbelow
- Second Place: Allan
- Third Place: Robert Greavu
And as always, we kept the game open for a First to Finish winner. This is the first player to get a perfect score which happened roughly 23.5 hours after the start of the game.
- First to Finish: Bo Hui
We want to give you the opportunity to keep working through the challenges, so we’re sharing the questions and links to the images below in addition to links to community solves. Keep reading to hear about a NEW CTF available to play in April!
Images
Still need a copy of the forensic images? We are happy to have released an iOS 16 Full File System image as part of this data set as well as an Android 12 image that takes advantage of some new features. There is plenty to explore in these data sets beyond the CTF itself.
- Download the images here: bit.ly/MVS2024Images
- We have requested these images be posted to NIST CFReDS as well
Questions
| Challenge Name | Question |
| Cipher Challenge | |
| VIGorous ENcrypting? Embrace the Riddle’s Essence, it’s “essential”! | QshprMzepw |
| Why did the steganography expert wear a ‘cloak’? To keep their hidden messages undercover. | We hope you are having a great day! |
| EXIF data is like the memory foam of photography – it always remembers the shot you took! | nicedog.jpg |
| Surfing sound waves in California searching for hidden messages | song.wav |
| Have you ever tried reading the alphabet in reverse? | Ru lmob dv xlfow gfim yzxp grnv |
| ROTten people hiding their secrets! | Stego RTF |
| Why did the bicycle fall over? It was tired of all the ROTation! | rfgq ayl lmr zc rfgq qgknjc |
| I tried to write a joke about trains, but it didn’t gain any traction. It just went off the RAIL | MO OFRSIB ECSNIENI ULSF |
| What is your favorite SHAKESPEARE play? | lv bo sj cst ks tl, trel xw tyi ibecxadr |
| BASH these ROTten criminals | rj vuzcj n mncczza |
| Why did the balloon go to therapy? It needed to OPEN PUFF about its inflated emotions! | puffr.bmp |
| Giovan Battista Bellaso probably LOVED pigs |  |
| iOS | |
| Why are your messages green? | On what date did Rocco and Chadwick first meet in person according to their conversations? YYYY-MM-DD format |
| Where /r u going on safari? | What subreddit was visited in a browser? |
| Don’t ghost me | At what time did Chadwick get annoyed at MYAI? YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS UTC |
| IMAGEine living in pain | Chad seemed to be searching for pain relief medicine in a store, how much did it cost? |
| Your keyboard is salt-y | How many total words were typed on the device? |
| Build me up, buttercup | What is the current build version? |
| Answer the call | What is the guild ID of the discord server Chad was in? |
| Warning Signs | How many days did it take Chad to be warned about his Data Usage? |
| Watching streams to stay current | What is the name of Chad’s streaming channel? |
| One is The Loneliest Number | What question did Chadwick ask to AI? |
| Watch me sUAVely win this game | How many kills did Chad have on his CoD Mobile winning game? |
| For when I can’t Find My gear | What outdoor activity store did Chadwick Visit? |
| Just a couple steps away | How many steps did Chad take on 12/3/2023? |
| Another regularly scheduled program | What Tattoo shop was visited on 12/27/2023? |
| I hear Stanley cups are all the rage | What was the final score of the hockey game Chad went to? (home – away) |
| Devil is in the details | Whose bitmoji is dressed like a devil? |
| Excuse Moi? What did you say? | What is the content of the 2nd message that Chad deleted on Dec 18, 2023 |
| Boost this server | What is the 16 character carrier code? |
| The easy way or the hard way | What is the timestamp of the message Chad sent to Rocco but was never recieved? YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS UTC |
| Its been a long time | When did chad last login to Facebook? YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS UTC |
| Can anyone Kelp? | What game was Chad asking to know the strategy to? |
| Chat GPT is my PREFERENCE for AI | What is the ChatGPT userID associated with chawickmr95@gmail.com |
| Read my mind | What message was sent to Rocco in a video game |
| Season’s Greetings | What was the first emoji that was sent to Susan? |
| Follow the Breadcrumbs | How many times did Chad’s keyboard become visible within the Amazon app on 12/24/2023? |
| Android | |
| Press x to Respawn | On what platform did Rocco share his Call of Duty Username? |
| Warm Up | What Southern state’s sports team did Rocco search up? |
| Can you Handle this | What was Rocco’s Twitter account name? |
| Need to reach those heights | What is the SIM operator name? |
| Not to be basic but... | What is the default Internet Browser? |
| Survival Mode Activated | What conference did Rocco show interest in? |
| Sign me up! | What email is associated with the device? |
| Not so popular | How many messages were sent from Rocco in Twitter Direct Messages? |
| No two cents about them | According to exCHANGEs in discord with Chad, what did Chad want back from Rocco? |
| You can never be too ready | How many additional survival tips were provided in the $9 book Rocco was looking into? |
| Tag your’re it! | What city was the user in when they identified an AirTag on them |
| A game of Cat and Mouse | What game did two beloved cartoon charachters promote in an Ad? |
| Always achieving new heights | What was the new score achieved on the video game Rocco watched on Youtube? |
| LIVE your life | What two sports did rocco capture in a photo (__ and ___) |
| Remember your floaties | What fun outdoor activity location was searched for? |
| R-E-J-E-C-T-E-D Rejected | When was the last shutdown that was initiated by Rocco? (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS) UTC 24 hour time. |
| Out of Stock | What is the most recent score in Subway Surfer |
| So Salty! | What is the handle of the person who is talking aobut how upset they are with Rocco? |
| Don’t let them see you down | What was added using photoshop |
| It’s the eye of the tiger | When is Rocco’s Bday? (YYYY-MM-DD) |
| Secrets Secrets are no Fun | What did Rocco search in the App Store to download the app used to hide photos |
| Stalker Alert | Shortly after logging into Facebook with IP address 72.38.231.98, a photo was taken. Where was this photo taken? |
Solutions
Several folks have shared their solutions for this year’s MVS CTF. We love when people share their methods. Check them out to see how others solved the challenges. There is often more than one way to solve the challenges:
- First place finisher, Madi Brumbelow, walks through their solves on their github
- Doug Metz shared his solves on his Baker Street Forensics site
- Kevin Pagano on his blog Stark4n6:
- 0xtryo shares on DFIR101
- Kairo provides solutions for all three sections on their blog.
Announcing a weekly Hexordia CTF!
In building this year’s CTF, we thought of challenges that are more in depth than appropriate for the timed CTF. As such, Hexordia will be hosting a 2024 Spring Weekly CTF. This will use this year’s MVS2024 images with some in-depth challenges. Challenges from Jessica Hyde, Kevin Pagano, Geraldine Blay, and Cesar Quezada. More details coming April 1!
Check out the 2024 Spring Weekly CTF.
Thank You!
Thank you to everyone who played, observed, read about, and cheered on participants in the MVS 2024 CTF! A special thank you once again to our fabulous CTF sponsors: SANS, Leahy Center, and the Champlain Digital Forensics Association. And as always a big shout out to the amazing Hexordia interns Alayna Cash, Natan Eliezer, Derek Farrell, James Nicholls, and A’zariya Daniel from the Champlain Digital Forensics Association for working with us to build this incredibly fun challenge for the community.