RiceSec

Rice University's official CTF club and team.

We are a club at Rice University that focuses on cybersecurity and competes in Capture the Flag (CTF) events.

What are CTFs?

CTFs are hacking competitions in which participants apply their cybersecurity skills in a safe and legal way. CTFs generally consist of many separate challenges. Upon completing each challenge, teams find strings called flags (e.g. flag{r1c3sec_f0r_th3_w1n!}), which earn them points. There are many different types of challenges — some might involve picking apart a program to figure out how it works (reverse engineering) or tricking a website into giving you access to files that it shouldn't.

If you're interested in learning more about CTFs, take a look at the pinned messages in the #learn channel on our Discord or at our compilation of CTF Resources.

What do I need to know to get started?

All you need is basic programming experience! CTFs involve a lot of "learning on the job". Believe it or not, the best way to get better at CTFs is to participate in them. If you're new to the scene, we recommend participating in CTFs that are explicitly beginner-friendly. Feel free to check out RiceSec's write-ups from past CTFs.

How do I join?

All Rice students are welcome to join RiceSec! Start by joining our Owlnest organization and our Discord, where we co-ordinate our participation in CTFs.