Aleksandr Piatkin

VolgaCTF 2024 Qualifier: report

VolgaCTF 2024 Qualifier: report

by Aleksandr Piatkin 7 min read

On March 30-31th, VolgaCTF.org team held its annual qualifier event, namely VolgaCTF 2024 Qualifier.

The report elaborates on some key metrics that were collected during the competition this year. The data is compared against VolgaCTF 2023 Qualifier.

Key metrics

Tasks

Sign up

Sign up was made available on February 14th and teams could register up to the end of the competition. The most number of teams (181), as expected, joined the event on the first day of the contest, March 30th.


Number of teams

This year saw an increase in the number of teams playing:

Number of teams VolgaCTF 2024 Qualifier VolgaCTF 2023 Qualifier Change
Total 807 426 +381
Qualified 678 346 +332
Disqualified 0 0 –
Signed in during the competition 569 343 +226
Submitted at least one flag 302 181 +121
Solved at least one task 257 140 +117
Reviewed at least one task 144 88 +56


Team sign in activity

The chart below shows how many different teams signed in during the competition.


Task submit attempts distribution

The chart shows the number of teams who submitted flags to the given number of tasks (at least).


Task hit distribution

The chart shows the number of teams who solved the given number of tasks (at least).


Task review distribution

A team can write a review to the task they solved. The chart below shows the number of teams who reviewed the given number of tasks (at least).


Team/country distribution

Traditionally, VolgaCTF is played in all areas of the world. The most represented countries are shown in the diagram:


And here is a comparison table:

# Country Number of teams (2024) Number of teams (2023) Change
1 Russia 281 151 +130
2 India 60 21 +39
3 China 25 9 +16
4 International 24 18 +6
5 Vietnam 22 15 +7
6 Republic of Korea 18 9 +9
7 Mongolia 18 8 +10
8 United States 16 12 +4
9 Kazakhstan 16 2 +14
10 Japan 11 14 -3
11 Morocco 10 2 +8
12 Algeria 10 2 +8
13 Bangladesh 9 6 +3
14 Indonesia 8 5 +3
15 France 8 6 +2
16 Saudi Arabia 7 1 +6
17 Philippines 7 1 +6
18 Malaysia 7 2 +5
19 Hong Kong 7 4 +3
20 Canada 6 1 +5
21 Belarus 6 1 +5
22 Greece 5 3 +2
23 Germany 5 3 +2
24 Egypt 5 1 +4
25 Singapore 4 3 +1
26 Pakistan 4 0 +4
27 Italy 4 3 +1
28 Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan 4 3 +1
29 Brazil 4 0 +4
30 United Kingdom 3 3 –
31 United Arab Emirates 3 0 +3
32 Thailand 3 2 +1
33 Taiwan 3 1 +2
34 Spain 3 2 +1
35 Kuwait 3 0 +3
36 Iran 3 5 -2
37 Turkey 2 1 +1
38 Serbia 2 1 +1
39 Peru 2 0 +2
40 Norway 2 0 +2
41 Nepal 2 0 +2
42 Australia 2 2 –
43 Afghanistan 2 0 +2
44 Venezuela 1 0 +1
45 Uzbekistan 1 1 –
46 Ukraine 1 0 +1
47 Tunisia 1 1 –
48 Togo 1 0 +1
49 Sweden 1 0 +1
50 South Africa 1 0 +1
51 Saint-Barthélemy 1 0 +1
52 Rwanda 1 0 +1
53 Romania 1 0 +1
54 Qatar 1 0 +1
55 Poland 1 3 -2
56 New Zealand 1 0 +1
57 Myanmar (Burma) 1 0 +1
58 Luxembourg 1 0 +1
59 Kyrgyzstan 1 0 +1
60 Israel 1 1 –
61 Hungary 1 1 –
62 Honduras 1 0 +1
63 Finland 1 0 +1
64 Ethiopia 1 0 +1
65 Cyprus 1 1 –
66 Costa Rica 1 1 –
67 Colombia 1 1 –
68 Bolivia 1 0 +1
69 Benin 1 0 +1
70 Belgium 1 0 +1
71 Azerbaijan 1 0 +1
72 Armenia 1 1 –
73 Argentina 1 0 +1
74 Antarctica 1 0 +1
75 Albania 1 1 –

Warm of Pon

Metric Value
Value 284
Categories pwn
Opened Mar 30 at 15:00 UTC
Flags submitted 52
first on Mar 30 at 15:04 UTC
last on Mar 31 at 14:46 UTC
Solved by 27 teams
first on Mar 30 at 15:44 UTC by po_beda
last on Mar 31 at 14:46 UTC
Rated 3.4 (based on 13 reviews)

PQ

Metric Value
Value 91
Categories crypto
Opened Mar 30 at 15:00 UTC
Flags submitted 462
first on Mar 30 at 15:04 UTC
last on Mar 31 at 14:53 UTC
Solved by 198 teams
first on Mar 30 at 15:04 UTC by bi0s
last on Mar 31 at 13:44 UTC
Rated 4.2 (based on 83 reviews)

Make a Difference

Metric Value
Value 50
Categories stego
Opened Mar 30 at 15:00 UTC
Flags submitted 402
first on Mar 30 at 15:05 UTC
last on Mar 31 at 14:31 UTC
Solved by 65 teams
first on Mar 30 at 15:19 UTC by N0N@me13
last on Mar 31 at 14:31 UTC
Rated 2.7 (based on 21 reviews)

find_the_flag3

Metric Value
Value 153
Categories web
Opened Mar 30 at 16:00 UTC
Flags submitted 412
first on Mar 30 at 16:03 UTC
last on Mar 31 at 14:53 UTC
Solved by 106 teams
first on Mar 30 at 16:12 UTC by Drovosec
last on Mar 31 at 14:53 UTC
Rated 3.0 (based on 45 reviews)

Tales

Metric Value
Value 200
Categories stego
Opened Mar 30 at 16:30 UTC
Flags submitted 414
first on Mar 30 at 16:32 UTC
last on Mar 31 at 14:59 UTC
Solved by 0 teams
Rated n/a

cuCRACKME

Metric Value
Value 500
Categories reverse
Opened Mar 30 at 17:00 UTC
Flags submitted 18
first on Mar 30 at 17:08 UTC
last on Mar 31 at 13:14 UTC
Solved by 0 teams
Rated n/a

QR

Metric Value
Value 194
Categories crypto
Opened Mar 30 at 17:30 UTC
Flags submitted 101
first on Mar 30 at 17:39 UTC
last on Mar 31 at 14:57 UTC
Solved by 70 teams
first on Mar 30 at 18:02 UTC by smiley-from-telega
last on Mar 31 at 14:57 UTC
Rated 3.6 (based on 22 reviews)

Reanimation

Metric Value
Value 321
Categories forensics
Opened Mar 30 at 18:00 UTC
Flags submitted 192
first on Mar 30 at 18:09 UTC
last on Mar 31 at 14:56 UTC
Solved by 18 teams
first on Mar 30 at 20:06 UTC by D@T@C0RrUpT10#
last on Mar 31 at 14:52 UTC
Rated 3.7 (based on 11 reviews)

Zeliard Tales

Metric Value
Value 50
Categories misc
Opened Mar 30 at 18:30 UTC
Flags submitted 2731
first on Mar 30 at 18:48 UTC
last on Mar 31 at 14:58 UTC
Solved by 26 teams
first on Mar 30 at 19:02 UTC by dtl
last on Mar 31 at 14:51 UTC
Rated 1.4 (based on 17 reviews)

Greasepaint

Metric Value
Value 500
Categories forensics
Opened Mar 30 at 19:00 UTC
Flags submitted 111
first on Mar 30 at 19:41 UTC
last on Mar 31 at 14:59 UTC
Solved by 1 team
on Mar 30 at 23:57 UTC by kks
Rated n/a

Ponatural Selection

Metric Value
Value 437
Categories pwn
Opened Mar 30 at 19:30 UTC
Flags submitted 26
first on Mar 30 at 21:49 UTC
last on Mar 31 at 14:58 UTC
Solved by 4 teams
first on Mar 31 at 01:47 UTC by bi0s
last on Mar 31 at 14:45 UTC
Rated 5.0 (based on 1 review)

Single R

Metric Value
Value 228
Categories crypto
Opened Mar 30 at 20:00 UTC
Flags submitted 88
first on Mar 30 at 20:24 UTC
last on Mar 31 at 14:24 UTC
Solved by 49 teams
first on Mar 30 at 20:24 UTC by CyberHero
last on Mar 31 at 14:24 UTC
Rated 4.3 (based on 16 reviews)

Rusted Nail

Metric Value
Value 219
Categories misc
Opened Mar 30 at 21:55 UTC
Flags submitted 79
first on Mar 30 at 22:26 UTC
last on Mar 31 at 14:49 UTC
Solved by 54 teams
first on Mar 30 at 22:26 UTC by ICE
last on Mar 31 at 14:49 UTC
Rated 4.5 (based on 15 reviews)

Tridea

Metric Value
Value 500
Categories reverse, crypto
Opened Mar 30 at 22:08 UTC
Flags submitted 6
first on Mar 31 at 11:25 UTC
last on Mar 31 at 12:57 UTC
Solved by 0 teams
Rated n/a

Feedback

Metric Value
Value 10
Categories misc
Opened Mar 31 at 12:00 UTC
Flags submitted 168
first on Mar 31 at 12:00 UTC
last on Mar 31 at 14:58 UTC
Solved by 144 teams
first on Mar 31 at 12:00 UTC by Mazala
last on Mar 31 at 14:58 UTC
Rated 4.2 (based on 43 reviews)

P.S. Thanks for participating and see you next year!