Cyber Apocalypse 2024 event recap: Hacker Royale

Cyber Apocalypse 2024 certainly didn’t disappoint! 

This year, close to 13,000 people gathered to participate. 5,730 teams were created by people who were friends before or people who met each other on our Discord server.

Together they submitted 42,848 flags, while eight of those teams managed to solve all 67 challenges.

Can't get enough of Cyber Apocalypse? Relive your team's adventure with our Hacker Royale swag! 

Theme: A battle between factions to determine the very best

In a dystopic future after a catastrophic event called “The Great Division” took place, the evil organization KORP™ took control of everything.

They hold a social gauntlet called “The Fray” every four years to find the "best and the brightest around." The winning functions become the "Legionaries" and they progress to the next fight.

Behold the factions:

👹 The Phreaks: The telecom companies banded together under the guidance of a motley crew of hackers who hijacked their entire base of operations. Their goal is seemingly to keep the party rolling, but under the hood, they always seem to be planning something. They are the most likely to help newer factions.

💰 The Profits: They say your salvation is worth its weight in gold; for them, it's not a figure of speech. This faction consists of the legacy of economic leaders, market analysts, and creators of quant software. More than any other faction, they want to be a part of KORP.

🎥 The Talents: Online celebrities and software developers came together to create their vision for the future. In the end, they want all eyes on them. Their drive for glory and views pushes them to perform incredible feats actively.

🌲 The Revivalists: This faction aims to bring down the current system and start from the basics, rocks and sticks. They want to return to a natural way of life and leave tech behind, believing society needs a reboot. Despite being one of the legionaries, they are vocal about dismantling KORP.

❓ The Factionless: More and more people seem to arrive every day, looking for opportunities to succeed and create factions of their own. Until they find their place, they are known as Factionless.

67 challenges for every taste

When you are participating in Cyber Apocalypse, there’s something for everyone. A very easy challenge for a beginner? What about an insane web challenge for the pros? Do you want to see what is all this fuss about Blockchain hacking? We got you!

The new leaders! 

Reaching the top of the table is not an easy feat. Despite that, eight teams managed to solve all 67 challenges. 

These teams gave it all so we are coming back to them with more than $60,000 worth of prizes. Behold our top three:

🥇Friendly Maltese Citizens

That is a name you do not forget easily, and they managed to do it all in one day. Here’s what they got:

• $2,674 in cash (hehe, 2 x 1337, get it? 🥶).

• HTB exclusive challenge coins.

• Twenty Flipper Zeros.

• Twenty Gold Annual HTB Academy subscriptions.

• Twenty 3-month Pro Labs HTB Labs subscriptions.

🥈The Flat Network Society

The Flat Network conspiracy is getting bigger, now they have recruited some top-level hackers. They can use these to boost the movement:

• $1,337 in cash.

• Twenty Gold Annual HTB Academy subscriptions.

• Twenty Annual HTB VIP+ subscriptions.

🥉Synacktiv

Filling up the podium we have Synacktiv from France! They won the third place and:

• Twenty Silver Annual HTB Academy subscriptions.

• Twenty $50 HTB Swag Cards.

It is also about learning!

Every CTF is a chance to learn new things, whether you’re a beginner or a veteran. We held a stream on the previous day to discuss, and also teach some new things.

• Emma discussed the importance of community in your hacking journey.

• 0xdf went beyond root and showcased the important lessons that you can get even from very easy challenges.

• Dark discussed the troubled history of printers.

Besides the CTF winners, we held a competition for the best writeup, the winner of which got a brand new Sony PlayStation 5. All of these writeups are public so you can gain maximum benefits. Here is the best writeup for Cyber Apocalypse 2024.

Until next year…

"Our community is the heart and soul of Hack The Box, which is why Cyber Apocalypse will always be one of our favorite CTF events. So, if you're vibing with HTB, there's no way you're missing out on the next round. Get ready to bring your A-game next year!"

Haris Pylarinos (ch4P), CEO and Founder, Hack The Box

Cyber Apocalypse will be back for 2025, until then, keep following our CTF platform for future events and join our Discord server to be a part of our community.

If you work in a company, why not enter our Business CTF 2024? This year’s theme follows a devastating nuclear fallout, with their only salvation being a hidden underground vault. 

Author bio: Panos Petsanas (panawesome), Community CTF Project Manager, Hack The Box Panos Petsanas has worked as a penetration tester for four years and has been a CTF player for much longer. He was a member of HTB before it was cool and his favorite categories are Web and Fullpwn—he's trying to get into Cloud. As a professional, he specialized in Web and Infrastructure assessments. Panos holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, and a Master’s in Information Systems. He also has Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP) and Certified Red Team Professional (CRTP) certifications.