CTF Suggested Tools for Getting Started

tools.md

Suggested tools notes

From 10/2/2017

Evan McBroom talked about some of his favorite tools for use in CTF. Myself and others in the audience also suggested some.

Reverse Engineering

Tools

• Windows VM
  • Set up all your tools and make a snapshot so you can revert back to it after each CTF
• IDA Pro
• Binary Ninja
  • Cheaper than IDA and just as good for CTFs, made specifically for CTFs
  • ~$100
• Hopper
  • Geared toward iOS, Mac OS jailbreaking communities
• Radare
  • Not phenomenal, bust still useful

Important languages

These are good to know since you can effectively decompile binaries written from these languages, which you'll find in CTFs

• Lua
• Python
• JAVA

Resources

• RE 4 beginners
• Malware Unicorn's courses
  • RE 101: https://securedorg.github.io/RE101/
  • RE 102: https://securedorg.github.io/RE102/

Exploitation

Tools

• Familiarity with some decent debugger
  • WinDebug
  • gdb
  • qira
    • Made specifically for CTFs
• Python + pwntools
• peda
  • extension for gdb
• pwndbg
  • Recommended over peda
  • Very useful even for normal programming

Resources

• Humble bundle that's out right now
• Hacking: The Art of Exploitation
• OverTheWire.org
• Pwnable.kr
  • Later, Pwnable.tw
• Microcorruption.com
  • A lot of fun, breaking into a bank
  • Uses MSP430

Cryptography

Tools

• xor-tool
• cribdrag
  • For when you have a message encrypted via xor, but don't know the key
  • If you know the flag's shape ("DCTF{sha256}"), this is especially useful
• hashcat
  • Breaking hashes if you have a guess of original text
• python modules
  • libnum
  • pycrypto

Resources

• Wikipedia, actually
• Cryptopals.com
  • Additional problems can be received by sending in solutions to all of the problems on the site

Web

Tools

• BurpSuite
  • Extremely useful
• dirbuster
  • Hopefully never need it, but some poorly managed CTFs on the other hand...
• Sqlmap
  • Useful if you think a field can be SQL injected, but don't know where to go from there
  • Even shows you how it was determined
• Chrome DevTools
  • All things frontend
  • Network controls
  • JavaScript full control
• curl

Resources

• Damn Vulnerable Web App
  • Maybe not most up-to-date, but still very useful
• OWASP.org
  • Learn about all sorts of vulnerabilities etc

Forensics

Tools

• Wireshark
  • All sorts of network inspection tools
  • Great for all those pcap files
• Scapy
  • Python module for scripting with pcaps
• FTK Autopsy
• dd
  • Convert and copy, but cc was taken
• Volatility
  • RAM images
• Ettercap
  • Man in the middle attacks
  • Bettercap is a "better" alternative too

THANKS BRAH