CTF (Capture The Flag) is a fun way to learn hacking. It's an information security competition, you have to solve challenges from decoding a string to hacking into a server. The goal is to find a specific piece of text called flag.

CTF Sites is the biggest collection of CTF sites, contains only permanent CTFs. I started this project more for myself in the beginning, like a cheat sheet but then I thought it would be good to make it publicly available, it would help a lot of people.

Penetration testing and security lab Operating Systems

• Kali Linux - Based on Debian.
• Parrot Security OS - Based on Debian.
• BackBox - Based on Ubuntu.

Malware analysts and reverse-engineering

• Flare VM - Based on Windows.
• REMnux - Based on Debian.

Tutorials to learn how to play CTFs

• CTF Field Guide - Field Guide by Trails of Bits.
• CTF Resources - Start Guide maintained by community.
• How to Get Started in CTF - Short guideline for CTF beginners by Endgame
• Intro. to CTF Course - A free course that teaches beginners the basics of forensics, crypto, and web-ex.
• IppSec - Video tutorials and walkthroughs of popular CTF platforms.
• LiveOverFlow - Video tutorials on Exploitation.
• MIPT CTF - A small course for beginners in CTFs (in Russian).

• Dnscat2 - Hosts communication through DNS.

• Kroll Artifact Parser and Extractor (KAPE) - Triage program.

• Magnet AXIOM - Artifact-centric DFIR tool.

• Registry Dumper - Dump your registry.

  *** More Tools ***

  • Aircrack-Ng - Crack 802.11 WEP and WPA-PSK keys.

    apt-get install aircrack-ng

  • Audacity - Analyze sound files (mp3, m4a, whatever).

    apt-get install audacity

  • Bkhive and Samdump2 - Dump SYSTEM and SAM files.

    apt-get install samdump2 bkhive

  • CFF Explorer - PE Editor.
  • Creddump - Dump windows credentials.
  • DVCS Ripper - Rips web accessible (distributed) version control systems.
  • Exif Tool - Read, write and edit file metadata.

    apt-get install exiftool

  • Extundelete - Used for recovering lost data from mountable images.
  • Fibratus - Tool for exploration and tracing of the Windows kernel.
  • Foremost - Extract particular kind of files using headers.

    apt-get install foremost

  • Fsck.ext4 - Used to fix corrupt filesystems.
  • Malzilla - Malware hunting tool.
  • NetworkMiner - Network Forensic Analysis Tool.
  • PDF Streams Inflater - Find and extract zlib files compressed in PDF files.
  • Pngcheck - Verifies the integrity of PNG and dump all of the chunk-level information in human-readable form.

    apt-get install pngcheck

  • ResourcesExtract - Extract various filetypes from exes.
  • Shellbags - Investigate NT_USER.dat files.
  • Snow - A Whitespace Steganography Tool.
  • USBRip - Simple CLI forensics tool for tracking USB device artifacts (history of USB events) on GNU/Linux.
  • Volatility - To investigate memory dumps.
  • Wireshark - Used to analyze pcap or pcapng files

Tools used for creating Web challenges JavaScript Obfustcators

• Metasploit JavaScript Obfuscator
• Uglify

Tools used for performing various kinds of attacks

• Bettercap - Framework to perform MITM (Man in the Middle) attacks.
• Yersinia - Attack various protocols on layer 2.

Tools used for solving Web challenges

• BurpSuite - A graphical tool to testing website security.
• Commix - Automated All-in-One OS Command Injection and Exploitation Tool.
• Hackbar - Firefox addon for easy web exploitation.
• OWASP ZAP - Intercepting proxy to replay, debug, and fuzz HTTP requests and responses
• Postman - Add on for chrome for debugging network requests.
• Raccoon - A high performance offensive security tool for reconnaissance and vulnerability scanning.
• SQLMap - Automatic SQL injection and database takeover tool.

  pip install sqlmap

• W3af - Web Application Attack and Audit Framework.
• XSSer - Automated XSS testor.

Tools used for various kind of bruteforcing (passwords etc.)

• Hashcat - Password Cracker
• Hydra - A parallelized login cracker which supports numerous protocols to attack
• John The Jumbo - Community enhanced version of John the Ripper.
• John The Ripper - Password Cracker.
• Nozzlr - Nozzlr is a bruteforce framework, trully modular and script-friendly.
• Ophcrack - Windows password cracker based on rainbow tables.
• Patator - Patator is a multi-purpose brute-forcer, with a modular design.
• Turbo Intruder - Burp Suite extension for sending large numbers of HTTP requests

Tools used for solving Exploits challenges

• DLLInjector - Inject dlls in processes.
• libformatstr - Simplify format string exploitation.
• Metasploit - Penetration testing software.
  • Cheatsheet
• one_gadget - A tool to find the one gadget execve('/bin/sh', NULL, NULL) call.

  gem install one_gadget

• Pwntools - CTF Framework for writing exploits.
• Qira - QEMU Interactive Runtime Analyser.
• ROP Gadget - Framework for ROP exploitation.
• V0lt - Security CTF Toolkit.

Registry Viewers

• OfflineRegistryView - Simple tool for Windows that allows you to read offline Registry files from external drive and view the desired Registry key in .reg file format.
• Registry Viewer® - Used to view Windows registries.

Tools used for solving Networking challenges

• Masscan - Mass IP port scanner, TCP port scanner.
• Monit - A linux tool to check a host on the network (and other non-network activities).
• Nipe - Nipe is a script to make Tor Network your default gateway.
• Nmap - An open source utility for network discovery and security auditing.
• Wireshark - Analyze the network dumps.

  apt-get install wireshark

• Zeek - An open-source network security monitor.
• Zmap - An open-source network scanner.

Tools used for solving Crypto challenges

• CyberChef - Web app for analysing and decoding data.
• FeatherDuster - An automated, modular cryptanalysis tool.
• Hash Extender - A utility tool for performing hash length extension attacks.
• padding-oracle-attacker - A CLI tool to execute padding oracle attacks.
• PkCrack - A tool for Breaking PkZip-encryption.
• QuipQuip - An online tool for breaking substitution ciphers or vigenere ciphers (without key).
• RSACTFTool - A tool for recovering RSA private key with various attack.
• RSATool - Generate private key with knowledge of p and q.
• XORTool - A tool to analyze multi-byte xor cipher.

Tools used for solving Reversing challenges

• Androguard - Reverse engineer Android applications.
• Angr - platform-agnostic binary analysis framework.
• Apk2Gold - Yet another Android decompiler.
• ApkTool - Android Decompiler.
• Barf - Binary Analysis and Reverse engineering Framework.
• Binary Ninja - Binary analysis framework.
• BinUtils - Collection of binary tools.
• BinWalk - Analyze, reverse engineer, and extract firmware images.
• Boomerang - Decompile x86/SPARC/PowerPC/ST-20 binaries to C.
• ctf_import – run basic functions from stripped binaries cross platform.
• cwe_checker - cwe_checker finds vulnerable patterns in binary executables.
• demovfuscator - A work-in-progress deobfuscator for movfuscated binaries.
• Frida - Dynamic Code Injection.
• GDB - The GNU project debugger.
• GEF - GDB plugin.
• Ghidra - Open Source suite of reverse engineering tools. Similar to IDA Pro.
• Hopper - Reverse engineering tool (disassembler) for OSX and Linux.
• IDA Pro - Most used Reversing software.
• Jadx - Decompile Android files.
• Java Decompilers - An online decompiler for Java and Android APKs.
• Krakatau - Java decompiler and disassembler.
• Objection - Runtime Mobile Exploration.
• PEDA - GDB plugin (only python2.7).
• Pin - A dynamic binary instrumentaion tool by Intel.
• PINCE - GDB front-end/reverse engineering tool, focused on game-hacking and automation.
• PinCTF - A tool which uses intel pin for Side Channel Analysis.
• Plasma - An interactive disassembler for x86/ARM/MIPS which can generate indented pseudo-code with colored syntax.
• Pwndbg - A GDB plugin that provides a suite of utilities to hack around GDB easily.
• radare2 - A portable reversing framework.
• Triton - Dynamic Binary Analysis (DBA) framework.
• Uncompyle - Decompile Python 2.7 binaries (.pyc).
• WinDbg - Windows debugger distributed by Microsoft.
• Xocopy - Program that can copy executables with execute, but no read permission.
• Z3 - A theorem prover from Microsoft Research.

JavaScript Deobfuscators

• Detox - A Javascript malware analysis tool.
• Revelo - Analyze obfuscated Javascript code.

SWF Analyzers

• RABCDAsm - Collection of utilities including an ActionScript 3 assembler/disassembler.
• Swftools - Collection of utilities to work with SWF files.
• Xxxswf - A Python script for analyzing Flash files.

• OSINT_Framework
• TinEye
• Shodan Hacker Search Engine

Various kind of useful services available around the internet

• CSWSH - Cross-Site WebSocket Hijacking Tester.
• Request Bin - Lets you inspect http requests to a particular url.

Collections of installer scripts, useful tools

• CTF Tools - Collection of setup scripts to install various security research tools.
• LazyKali - A 2016 refresh of LazyKali which simplifies install of tools and configuration.

Always online CTFs

• Backdoor - Security Platform by SDSLabs.
• Crackmes - Reverse Engineering Challenges.
• CryptoHack - Fun cryptography challenges.
• echoCTF.RED - Online CTF with a variety of targets to attack.
• Exploit Exercises - Variety of VMs to learn variety of computer security issues.
• Exploit.Education - Variety of VMs to learn variety of computer security issues.
• Gracker - Binary challenges having a slow learning curve, and write-ups for each level.
• Hack The Box - Weekly CTFs for all types of security enthusiasts.
• Hack This Site - Training ground for hackers.
• Hacker101 - CTF from HackerOne
• Hacking-Lab - Ethical hacking, computer network and security challenge platform.
• Hone Your Ninja Skills - Web challenges starting from basic ones.
• IO - Wargame for binary challenges.
• Microcorruption - Embedded security CTF.
• Over The Wire - Wargame maintained by OvertheWire Community.
• PentesterLab - Variety of VM and online challenges (paid).
• PicoCTF - All year round ctf game. Questions from the yearly picoCTF competition.
• PWN Challenge - Binary Exploitation Wargame.
• Pwnable.kr - Pwn Game.
• Pwnable.tw - Binary wargame.
• Pwnable.xyz - Binary Exploitation Wargame.
• Reversin.kr - Reversing challenge.
• Ringzer0Team - Ringzer0 Team Online CTF.
• Root-Me - Hacking and Information Security learning platform.
• ROP Wargames - ROP Wargames.
• SANS HHC - Challenges with a holiday theme released annually and maintained by SANS.
• SmashTheStack - A variety of wargames maintained by the SmashTheStack Community.
• Viblo CTF - Various amazing CTF challenges, in many different categories. Has both Practice mode and Contest mode.
• VulnHub - VM-based for practical in digital security, computer application & network administration.
• W3Challs - A penetration testing training platform, which offers various computer challenges, in various categories.
• WebHacking - Hacking challenges for web.

Projects that can be used to host a CTF

• CTFd - Platform to host jeopardy style CTFs from ISISLab, NYU Tandon.
• echoCTF.RED - Develop, deploy and maintain your own CTF infrastructure.
• FBCTF - Platform to host Capture the Flag competitions from Facebook.
• Haaukins- A Highly Accessible and Automated Virtualization Platform for Security Education.
• HackTheArch - CTF scoring platform.
• Mellivora - A CTF engine written in PHP.
• MotherFucking-CTF - Badass lightweight plaform to host CTFs. No JS involved.
• NightShade - A simple security CTF framework.
• OpenCTF - CTF in a box. Minimal setup required.
• PicoCTF - The platform used to run picoCTF. A great framework to host any CTF.
• PyChallFactory - Small framework to create/manage/package jeopardy CTF challenges.
• RootTheBox - A Game of Hackers (CTF Scoreboard & Game Manager).
• Scorebot - Platform for CTFs by Legitbs (Defcon).
• SecGen - Security Scenario Generator. Creates randomly vulnerable virtual machines.

Self-hosted CTFs

• Damn Vulnerable Web Application - PHP/MySQL web application that is damn vulnerable.
• Juice Shop CTF - Scripts and tools for hosting a CTF on OWASP Juice Shop easily.

Collections of CTF write-ups

• 0e85dc6eaf - Write-ups for CTF challenges by 0e85dc6eaf
• Captf - Dumped CTF challenges and materials by psifertex.
• CTF write-ups (community) - CTF challenges + write-ups archive maintained by the community.
• CTFTime Scrapper - Scraps all writeup from CTF Time and organize which to read first.
• HackThisSite - CTF write-ups repo maintained by HackThisSite team.
• Mzfr - CTF competition write-ups by mzfr
• pwntools writeups - A collection of CTF write-ups all using pwntools.
• SababaSec - A collection of CTF write-ups by the SababaSec team
• Shell Storm - CTF challenge archive maintained by Jonathan Salwan.
• Smoke Leet Everyday - CTF write-ups repo maintained by SmokeLeetEveryday team.