2022 MITRE Embedded Capture the Flag (eCTF) Competition

Registration for the 2022 MITRE Embedded Capture the Flag (eCTF) Competition is now open at https://mitrecyberacademy.org/competitions/embedded/! The competition will run over the spring semester from mid-January through mid-April with a mid-April virtual award ceremony (exact dates TBA).

MITRE's eCTF is an embedded security competition that puts university-affiliated teams (3-20 students each) through the experience of creating a secure system and learning from their mistakes. This design-build-attack-style competition helps develop practical skills that can be applied to securing critical embedded systems, such as UAVs, smart grids, and IoT devices. This year, the challenge will be to design a bootloader to securely perform firmware updates on an avionic device.

The eCTF is unique from other capture the flag competitions. The focus of the eCTF is on embedded systems, which present a new set of challenges and security implications. Additionally, the eCTF balances offense and defense by testing and awarding both sets of skills. The competition is split into two six-week phases: "design" and "attack". In the design phase, students develop a secure embedded system that meets a provided set of requirements. In the attack phase, students compete to break the security of other teams' designs.

Competing in the eCTF is a low-faculty-effort, high-student-reward opportunity. Winning teams receive a cash prize, publicity from MITRE, and typically earn accolades from their university as well. Students have used their participation in eCTF to build resumes, present at conferences, and open the door to valuable internship and career opportunities, including engineering positions at MITRE and Riverside Research. Many schools offer the eCTF as a for-credit course, often as a special topics course or an independent study. We strongly recommend this route as it helps students to commit time for the competition and recognizes and rewards students for their efforts. An example syllabus is available upon request.

For more information, please see the attached information packet and flyer, visit our website, or reach out to us at ectf@mitre.org.