I never participated in one, but i am currently helping setting up the CTF for HackintheBox 2012 Amsterdam. I can not give you any pointers on how to prepare for such an event, but i would say figure out what the focus will be. Normally it is all about hacking boxes, but sometimes there will be a lot of other challenges as well, like binaries, maybe even "low tech" challenges (last year we had some lock picking challenges which were worth quite some points.). Finally, if you are about winning, be sure to enter as a team. More people know more and you can multi task, which should get you faster through challenges. Good luck and report back with your experiences!

Check out this list for some practice CTFs http://capture.thefl.ag/practice-ctf/

Looks like you probably just missed out on registering for the Mozilla CTF https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Events/CTF which would have been a good introduction since it's aimed at less experienced people (at CTFs).

There are quite a few that go on, check the calendar on http://capture.thefl.ag

Thanks for the capture.thefl.ag link, Alan!


Your link works though

Knowing what goes into these might allow you to prepare better:
http://pen-testing.sans.org/blog/2011/12/10/sans-keynote-preso-put-your-game-face-on

http://pauldotcom.com/2011/01/episode-225-tonight-with-ed-ct.html

I was actually disappointed I couldn't attend DerbyCon last year; it had a fantastic group of participants. I'm going to make a serious effort to attend this year, so maybe we can get an EH.net team put together.

I was lucky enough to be at Derbycon last year and I spent a good deal of time on the CTF and finished 2nd place. There were many flags involved (around 80 i think) and the ones that i managed to get were very well thought out and kept the interest level up as they were fun to find.
This gave me an idea to create one myself (on a much, much smaller scale) which i made available here:
http://www.anotherwayin.net/p/capture-flag-challenge.html

A few of the flags are very similar to what i found on last years Derbycon so it might help prepare you for some of the things they put in.
It's basically a pick n mix of little hacks but you may find it useful.

there weren't any restrictions to my knowledge, some worked alone and some had teams of 6 or so.