Behind the Challenges: My experience as a CTF challenge creator

I was introduced to the concept of a CTF during my Sophomore year in Systems Security (CY3740). This class was a practical take on security and had “challenges” as assignments. These challenges were certain tasks that we did and got a flag that you submitted for points. I found these challenges to be interesting, even though I was unable to do all of them, and they were engaging and my first real taste of hacking.

In the following semesters I found myself trying more of these challenges during my own time. During the summer of 2023, I met a group of other students who shared the same interest in CTF challenges and founded the NEU CTF Club. Within the first year we became the largest cybersecurity club on campus and also hosted the largest cybersecurity-related event/competition on campus!

As luck would have it, Northeastern was poised to host the Country-to-Country(C2C) CTF Competition for 2025 and I was one of the technical committee members to organize this event.

This competition really pushed me out of my comfort zone by all means. I picked up web development on the fly by watching tutorials to make the website for this event. I was making CTF challenges, which I love, but I was making cryptography challenges.

I could not have imagined that having a knack for solving puzzles would result in me creating a club with one of the largest student participants, learning how to make websites, and even hosting a global cybersecurity competition for over 200 participants. All of this while making new friends, learning new skills, and having lots of fun.