Hello Hackers,

For this article, I wanted to take a break from our usual focus on hacking and instead share my unforgettable experience at the Hackfest event, a thrilling gathering of tech enthusiasts and hackers from around the world. Let me dive into the incredible journey and the inspiring moments I encountered during this innovative event.

So recently, I had the opportunity to attend the Hackfest, a good opportunity to meet hackers from the same country and from around the world. The event brought together brilliant minds, cutting-edge technology, and a competitive spirit that made it an unforgettable experience.

Also, various companies and sponsors actively participate, enriching the event’s experience for attendees. These companies often play a vital role in supporting the event financially, providing cutting-edge technologies and tools, and offering career opportunities to cybersecurity enthusiasts. Hackfest serves these companies to showcase their products and services, engage with cybersecurity professionals, and recruit top talent. Through interactive workshops, and presentations, sponsors share their expertise, offer hands-on demonstrations, and discuss the latest trends and innovations in the field. Attendees benefit from direct access to industry leaders, gaining insights into the latest cybersecurity solutions and networking opportunities.

Alongside numerous private companies, the government’s cybersecurity division was offering attendees the chance to explore career paths in both the public and private sectors. In addition to that, the government, engaged attendees with a cool coding challenge. This challenge was designed to test participants’ skills in finding vulnerabilities by reading a snippet from Java and C++ code. If someone could spot the vulnerabilities he/she will be rewarded for that.

Guess what ? I did the challenge and I won a Rubber Duck !

There were numerous Capture The Flag (CTF) types, specialized villages and hands-on labs catering to various interests and skill levels at Hackfest. This is the detail of each one:

• Bitcoin Village.
• Embedded Systems
• IoT Lab
• Lockpicking
• Amateur Radio
• Hackfest Generation for those aged 9 to 17 years old
• Cyber Citizen
• Mental Health
• Hack your carrer (Coaching and stuff)

As you can see there are lot of things to see and to experience. This year was different. This is not anymore a dedicated hacking event for geeks and enthusiasts but also for startups and companies.

Regarding the CTFs, there were numerous types as described below:

• CTF Pro.
• CTF Classic.
• Brainfuck Challenge
• Social Engineering
• IoT CTF.

Concerning the CTF Pro & CTF Classic you have to pay to participate. There were a cash prizes to top performers. I wanted to participate but I didn’t make it this year because I didn’t find a team. If I entered the competition alone they will put me randomly with a team that lacks a member or two. So, I didn’t want that !

When I was checking around, I found the IoT village. The lab was containing a bunch of IoT devices: routers, cameras, door bells… Some participants were trying to hack those IoT devices. The stuff supervising that told me that there is a CTF going on and I can participate as well. So yeah ! There was no need to have a team and I can hack all alone against others. Great !

There were two skilled teams. They were scoring pretty fast and I was stressed to lose my first place. I tried to go faster by changing my strategy. I was focusing on reverse engineering but I told to myself this will take a lot of time. I started to look for the challenges that I can do quickly. The challenges that I did are:

• Router hacking: Most of them were having a command injection either in Ping command or Nslookup. One of them was pretty difficult since you have to root shell through command injection. I didn’t solve it unfortunately.
• Reverse Engineering: firmware encryption & decryption
• Hardware hacking: Getting shell through UART.
• Cameras: Door bells & Camera hacking.
• Networks: Hacking by analyzing traffic using Wireshark and make some attacks directly to the device.

I won the CTF of course, it was pretty intense but I managed to get the first place 😎

The “Party Formel” team was close and they did a great job in a short amount of time. I didn’t know that they were giving a prize for being the first but yeah ! They gave this great book. Thanks for that !

The funny thing is, I have already this book 😅 but no big deal the most important thing was to have fun and I had much fun hacking IoTs !

Last but not least, after the ceremony where prizes were awarded, the stuff put an ATM machine and told everyone to hack it !

That was amazing ! Some people were able to lockpick the ATM, while others gained access to the admin menu. But the craziest part was the cash withdrawal.

In conclusion, the Hackfest event was an incredible journey filled with innovation, collaboration, and personal growth. It not only provided me with the opportunity to showcase my skills, but also allowed me to connect with a vibrant community of tech enthusiasts and forge friendships. I am grateful for the experience and look forward to future hackathons that will continue to push the boundaries of what we can achieve.

Stay tuned ! See you next time !

Categories: Hackfest

Tagged as: CTFs Hackfest hacking IoT