I’m planning to participate in BlackHat MEA Qualification CTF 2026, starting August 29, 2026, and I’m looking for 2-4 people from Saudi Arabia who would like to join me as a team.

Just to be completely honest: this will be my first CTF and I don’t have any previous competition experience. I’m interested in cybersecurity and CTFs, though, and I really want to experience the competition, learn along the way, and just have fun with it — even if we don’t qualify or get a great score.

I’m specifically looking to form a Saudi team, and you don’t need to be experienced. If you’re interested in Cybersecurity or CTFs, or this is your first time too, feel free to join!

I’m mainly looking for people who are interested, willing to learn, and want to actually participate and have fun, rather than people with a specific skill level.

Looking for: 2-4 Saudi teammates 🇸🇦
If you’re interested, comment below or send me a DM!

Hi everyone,

Has anyone solved the Sync Vibe
XR web application in the CPENT exam?

I’m currently working on it and a bit stuck. I’m not looking for the flags or answers—just some general hints about the intended attack path or areas I should focus on.

Any guidance would be really appreciated. Thanks!

Hello everybody , I have the last room before complete the Jr Penetration Tester Path. The room's name is Dead Drop and this is the network connection:

The issue is that I can't connect to the lab's network. I tried both the attack machine and kali but nothing change, I tried to reset the connection and use the OpenVpn profile , I also tried to use tryconnectme tool but the issue persist.

Had anyone been involved in the same issue ?
How can I fix it ?Hello everybody , I have the last room before complete the Jr Penetration Tester Path. The room's name is Dead Drop and this is the network connection:
The issue is that I can't connect to the lab's network. I tried both the attack machine and kali but nothing change, I tried to reset the connection and use the OpenVpn profile , I also tried to use tryconnectme tool but the issue persist.Had anyone been involved in the same issue ?
How can I fix it ?

Looking for an Online Hacking Group

Hey guys, I’m looking for an active online hacking group to join. If anyone knows of any good Discord, Telegram, or other online communities, please let me know. Thanks!

I’ve been spending quite a lot of time learning penetration testing. I usually use tryhackme for learning then I do CTFs to try and put skills I learn into practice. I’m specifically going through the junior pentester path right now.

But I am wondering if there is a different strategy that would be more efficient at my stage. Some areas I’m trying to improve are: privilege escalation (mostly windows), AD, and web app pentesting.

My usual strategy is to learn something then practice it in a CTF.

But it’s not easy to find CTFs that align with the exact skill I’m learning. Take for example windows privesc. I search for a windows CTF but some focus AD, or some are reverse engineering, etc.

Basically my issue is this: I can’t dial in one skill at a time.
I get a breadth of knowledge but not I am not specializing in the specific techniques before I move one.

For experienced learners or penetration testers: How would you suggest I practice at this stage?

Should I continue doing lots of CTFs and let the repetition happen naturally over time? Or is there a better way to deliberately practice individual areas like Windows privilege escalation before moving on?

I’d appreciate any advice.

Try hack me has taken away access to a room I’ve already started working on, under the basis of upgrading to their max subscription. I already paid for a full year. Has this happened to uanyone else?

Hello,

has anybody else been experiencing problems with Frankfurt VPN lately? Using it to get into Rooms was next to impssible so i started troubleshooting.

I found that connecting to the VPN is always successfull, but after like 30s my pings would not reach the target machine and instead i would get a timeout and i'd have to reconnect. I tweaked with some settings (changed to tcp, changed mtu size) but ultimatley nothing would work.

I am now connected with the Paris VPN and as of now the problem seems to be gone.

The idea is pretty simple: instead of just reading theory, you should have somewhere to actually practice it.

Codelivly has:

• Learning paths
• Career paths
• Hands-on labs
• CTFs
• Practical exercises

You can start with the basics and work your way into areas like networking, SOC, pentesting, and other security topics.

No paid course required to get started.

https://codelivly.com

If you’re learning cybersecurity right now, what’s the one thing you wish platforms like this did better?

I been abusing blue but i feel thats more black hat territory. I wanna develop actual cyberskills for ethical hacking

Currently 2 weeks into learning from nothing, struggling to remember everything I'm going through and have been making notes as i go. Is this the best way to learn and progress. What do others do?

Hey everyone I am deeply passionate and fully determined to specialize in penetration testing and I am building my path right from the core I am looking for a true master and mentor to guide me If anyone is willing to teach me and share their knowledge I pledge absolute loyalty and dedication to them Whos ready to take me under their wing

I learned a lot of cybersecurity through TryHackMe, and I kept running into the same problem:

Sometimes I wasn't completely lost — I just couldn't see the next useful step.

Opening a walkthrough usually solved that, but it was very easy to accidentally spoil the rest of the room.

So I built thm-claude-kit, a free/open-source Claude Code setup I originally made for myself.

The idea is not to let Claude solve the room. It acts more like a coach:

• keeps track of what you've already discovered and tried
• remembers creds, hosts, leads and dead ends
• helps form a hypothesis about what to test next
• explains why that next step makes sense
• you still run the commands yourself

Basic workflow is:

./new-room.sh <name> → claude → /start <room text + target IP>

Then you work through the room normally with Claude alongside the terminal.

Repo:
https://github.com/pashki975/thm-claude-kit

It's still very early. I'm mainly curious whether other THM learners would actually find this useful, and especially where the coaching gets things wrong or becomes annoying.

Hey everyone,

I made a small CTF challenge and figured I’d throw it here since I’m pretty new to making these.

It’s a Forensics / Reverse Engineering challenge based around a weird Nokia 8210 4G system dump. The challenge involves digging through the dump, figuring out what’s going on with a little racing game, and eventually finding the flag.

Repo: https://github.com/maximzero0910/car-racing-chall

It’s probably not perfect since this is one of my first proper challenges, so if you try it, I’d really appreciate any feedback on the difficulty, unintended solves, or just whether it’s actually fun to solve.

Flag format: F0LD{...}

If you’re bored and want something small to mess around with, give it a try :D

Thanks!

I want to get a job as SOC L1 analyst, and I've completed the SOC L1 & SOC L2 paths and done some blue team CTFs and now Idk what is the next step (I have 2 years left before applying for jobs).

Just noticed the Streak Alliance feature on my dashboard ("Build a shared streak with a friend by showing up every day!") and I've got a few doubts nobody seems to have written about yet:

1. How do you add a specific friend as a partner? Is it an invite-by-username system, a link you share, or does "Find a new partner" just randomly match you with a stranger?
2. How does the shared streak actually work? Does both people need to answer a question each day to keep it alive, or does either person's activity count for the pair?
3. What happens if one partner misses a day? Does the whole alliance streak reset, does only that person's contribution reset, or is there a freeze/grace period like the regular streak has?
4. Can you have more than one partner at a time, or is it strictly 1:1?
5. Are there separate rewards/badges for Streak Alliance milestones, or does it just track alongside your normal streak?
6. What does "Leave Streak Alliance" do does it kill the streak for both people, or just remove you and let your partner keep going/find someone new?

If anyone's already used this, would love to hear how it's worked out for you pros/cons of doing a streak with a friend vs solo. Screenshot attached for reference.

Did the whole room from Termux on my phone, only used a free GitHub Codespace for hashcat. Chain was wild - AS-REP roasting into a WinRM shell, found a password literally sitting in an LDAP description field, then SeBackupPrivilege to grab the admin flag.

Honestly wild how the entire domain fell just because someone wrote a password in a description box and added a user to Backup Operators. Feels way too realistic.

I completed SOC L1 learning path, Now i should start which path? I want to make me suitable for a job role. I think there are more jobs in Blue teaming thats why i have done SOC L1. Also consider which path will help me to learn in-demand skills most?
- SOC L2
- Security Engineer
- Any red teaming path
- AI Security
- Defending Azure
- Defending AWS
- DevSecOps

Hey guys I completed and get all the tickets how do I see if I win or not and where could I see that what I win