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ANSSI CTF 2020 - France CyberSecurity Challenge
First impressions of ANSSI's France CyberSecurity Challenge (FCSC)
Challenge Overview
The France CyberSecurity Challenge (FCSC) is a French qualifying competition organized by ANSSI as part of the European Cybersecurity Challenge (ECSC). It invites young people aged 14 to 25 to compete in a wide range of hacking challenges (Cryptography, Reverse Engineering, Pwn, Web, Forensics, Algorithms, Hardware, Networking, etc.).
At the conclusion of the competition (held from April 24 to May 4, 2020), the top 15 participants in the Junior category (born between 2000 and 2006) and the Senior category (born between 1995 and 1999) will be invited to the national final in Paris on June 26, 2020.
The top performers will then have the opportunity to join TeamFR 2020 and compete in the ECSC, taking place in Vienna on November 3.
My thoughts on this challenge
I initially joined this challenge just for fun and to see what a CTF (Capture The Flag)—the format used for this competition—was all about. I assumed that the areas I hadn’t covered during my Computer Science degree would be much harder than fields like Cryptography and Web security.
As it turned out, the other challenges were more approachable than I expected; it’s actually the medium and hard Crypto challenges that are giving me a hard time! 😅
Considering there were over 1,000 participants, I still managed to rank in the top 30%, so I plan to take a greater interest in this type of competition. I found the experience very rewarding, and some challenges—like Mazopotamia and Bestiari—were genuinely fun to solve.
I’ll definitely be back next year, with a bit more training under my belt! 💪
