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2930	7330	Remember the game you played as a kid, with flags hidden in opponents' terrain?
7330	11370	Now, imagine the field or code, and the flags are secret data.
11370	17770	Players exploit security flaws to capture the flags while at the same time defending their networks from opposing teams.
17770	22970	These capture-the-flag, CTF events, are as diverse as the teams that play them.
23070	27690	This is a global competitive community with thousands of players and global rankings.
27690	32650	It's been a part of the origin story for a great many prominent security experts.
32730	35090	So what do these hacking games look like?
35090	40890	CTFs can be either in-person or online, and usually take place over a weekend or other short period.
40890	45490	They often have a qualification round that determines who gets to participate in the finals.
45530	50410	CTFs are sometimes themed around a specific domain, like space for HackASAT.
50410	55910	But more commonly, they are not specialized and include a wide variety of different types of challenges.
55910	58010	The most common types of CTFs include...
58970	65370	Jeopardy CTFs, sometimes called Red Team CTFs, are named for their use of the classic game board as a scoreboard.
65370	69470	These are more offensive-focused. Each team is given infrastructure to attack,
69470	75270	and the number of successful attacks, the difficulty, or the speed at which they succeed, is factored into their score.
75270	82130	Attack Defense, A-D, or Full Spectrum CTFs, which are closer to the original game you might have played as a kid.
82130	88790	Each team has a server or set of servers to defend, and must attack other teams while also protecting their own infrastructure.
88790	96970	King of the Hill-style CTFs are Full Spectrum CTFs, in which teams score points by gaining and maintaining control of individual systems.
97030	102150	And finally, the less common Blue Team Exercises, which are primarily defensive events.
102150	108610	Game organizers host an environment and often a professional team of attackers to test the participants' defensive skills.
108610	111550	These are more common in the high school and collegiate level.
112230	119410	Even though the goal of the CTFs are to find and exploit vulnerabilities in computer systems, fair play is essential.
119410	125010	There are lots of ways to win, but to get the respect of your peers, you need to have good technical solutions.
125030	131930	Nobody is impressed if you use a network flood to knock the scoreboard offline, and those kinds of shenanigans will get you shunned quickly.
131950	139550	The best CTF players have built specialized tools, practiced within their domains, and include domain experts in many aspects of security.
140310	141630	Why CTF?
141630	149810	At their core, CTF challenges are a way for hackers to build community and demonstrate and hone their skills with other equally skilled people.
149810	157470	Competitions are also a chance to experience the joy of learning about a new programming language or a new piece of technology hackers haven't used before.
157470	164710	Capture the Flag challenges have also been used to help train cybersecurity teams and to get new hackers interested in security research.
164710	170790	Some companies even use competitions similar to CTFs to recruit and vet potential candidates for employment.
170790	177410	And CTFs have had real-world impact, with competitors finding actual security flaws in contest infrastructure.
177450	183050	Their solutions, while not counting towards winning the game, are often implemented in a real-world context.
183370	188730	With HackASAT, we have a CTF game designed to raise awareness about cybersecurity issues in space
188730	194770	and help researchers develop specific skills and domain knowledge they'll need to help secure this new frontier.
195090	202010	But as many of the players during our Quaz round found out, there are a lot of problems unique to the environments outside our atmosphere.
202010	208910	To learn more about hacking in space, check out our Space Talk videos that explain some of the most interesting space-specific challenges.