Written by: Nick Harbour
When it’s pumpkin spice season, that means it’s also Flare-On Challenge season. The Flare-On Challenge is a reverse engineering contest held every year by the FLARE team, and this marks its eleventh year running. It draws thousands of players from around the world every year, and is the foremost single-player CTF-style challenge for current and aspiring reverse engineers. It provides individual players with a gauntlet of increasingly challenging puzzles to test their ability, and earn a position in our hall of fame. Veteran competitors who have been following the live countdown over at flare-on.com may have already marked their calendar for the contest launch at 8:00pm ET on Sept. 27th, 2024. It will run for six weeks, ending at 8:00pm ET on Nov. 8th, 2024.
The Flare-On contest always features a diverse array of architectures, but with a strong representation of Windows binaries. This year’s contest may be the most diverse ever, with 10 challenges covering architectures including Windows, Linux, JavaScript, .NET, YARA, UEFI, Verilog, and Web3. Yes, you read that correctly, there is a YARA challenge this year. The challenges are often designed to represent Reverse Engineering challenges the FLARE team has encountered on the frontlines of cybersecurity.
If you successfully crush all 10 challenges you will be eligible to receive a prize, which will be revealed later. This crucial bit of gear will distinguish you from your colleagues who have not mastered the arcane art of Reverse Engineering, and will thus be an object of their envy. Your name or handle, should you choose to be included, will be permanently etched into the Hall of Fame on the Flare-On website.
Please check the Flare-On website for the live countdown and, upon launch, the link to the game server. Early account registration will open approximately two days before launch. While you’re there, check out last year’s challenges and official solutions to prepare yourself. For official news and information, we will be using the Twitter/X hashtag #flareon11.