HackBack2 2019
We want to make it easier for students to break into Cyber Security. Here is how our second HackBack went!

We ran the first HackBack in March 2019 and realised that it was a really good way to introduce students to cyber security! Read the first blog post here: https://blog.tryhackme.com/hosting-our-first-ctf-hackback-2019/

To follow our commitment of making it easier for students to break into security, we ran HackBack2 in October 2019 with over 500+ participants(double the number of our previous CTF) and 25+ Universities.

Like our previous CTF, we selected the variety of challenges to cover what one would expect in the security industry. The categories included:
- Web Exploitation
- Network Security
- Forensics
- Reverse Engineering
- Enumerating and Exploiting Public Vulnerabilities
The Day
- 10:00am: We started the live stream to run through basic information about the point system
- 10:25am: With some delays in the live stream, competition begins!
- 3:30pm: closing live stream
- 1st Place: Anonymoose - University of Edinburg
- 2nd Place: DMU Hackers - Demonfort University
- 3rd Place: NullGang - Warwick University
- Our live stream kicked users off(because of too many participants) - such a great problem to have! We'll use a better streaming client for the next CTF
- With over 500+ participants, our servers responded very slowly and almost stop responding at some point. This caused a few delays but luckily everyone enjoyed the event. We've already re-architected to ensure this doesn't happen next time
- Context Information Security: Our Sponsors made it possible to give the winners very cool prizes and even submitted an interesting networking challenge.
- Sticker Mule: Sticker Mule very generously sponsored the cool TryHackMe stickers for the event
- You: Thank you to all the participants and university staff for coordinating the logistics and participating on the day of the event.
Winners
We also had a special prize to promote women in security. The prize was given to AFNOM - University of Birmingham with 11 women participating in HackBack2
Postmortem
Thank You's
We're very grateful to the following people for making the event successfully:
How Everyone Found It
Amazing time on Saturday taking part in HackBack2 @RealTryHackMe! Proud to say the top team from @dmuhackers have finished 2nd 😲 well done to all our teams - the turnout for 9am on a Saturday was unbelievable. Great start of things to come 😁 #CTF #TryHackMe pic.twitter.com/HDbtPENfuh
— Chris Hatton (@hattonsec) October 27, 2019
🚩1st CTF of the yr @CTXIS sponsored @RealTryHackMe #HackBack2. Well done all @enusec @ComputingNapier students bagging some flags! A few just starting out in CTFs great to see! A few old heads - 1st yrs to MSc and a real fun atmosphere! Teams finishing in the top 20 from ~200 pic.twitter.com/q5hIiZ0iKF
— Rich Macfarlane (@rjmacfarlane) October 27, 2019
First CTF of the year completed! It was a lot of fun, learnt a lot. Can't wait to do more this year! 😄@RealTryHackMe
— Alecia Wallace (@Gromit__) October 26, 2019