CTF challenges

CTF (Capture The Flag) challenges are legal hacking exercises where you exploit deliberately vulnerable systems, analyze evidence or solve puzzles to find hidden “flags.” They are the fastest way to build practical skills in penetration testing, digital forensics, web security and incident response.

This collection gathers Cracking Station’s CTF writeups and video walkthroughs, including the complete Advent of Cyber 2025 and Advent of Cyber 2026 series (Splunk basics, prompt injection, XSS, phishing, YARA rules, race conditions, C2 detection, AWS security and ICS/Modbus) and beginner TryHackMe rooms. Each writeup explains the concept, the tools and commands used, and how to reach every answer, not just the flag itself.

New to CTFs? Start with our TryHackMe CTF Writeups & Hacking Roadmap 2026, which orders rooms from beginner to advanced.