2026 UNG CyberHawks Fledgling CTF — Official Rules

Welcome to the 2026 UNG CyberHawks Fledgling CTF! All participants are expected to follow these rules to ensure a fair, educational, and enjoyable competition.

1. General Conduct

• Treat all participants, organizers, and volunteers with respect.
• Harassment, discrimination, and disruptive behavior will not be tolerated.
• Follow all instructions provided by competition organizers.
• Organizers have final authority over rule interpretations and disputes.

2. Teams and Participation

• All participants must register on the official CTFd platform.
• Participants must compete as part of their assigned team.
• Sharing accounts between participants or teams is prohibited.
• Participants may not compete on multiple teams.

3. Challenge Rules

• Only attack systems and services explicitly designated as competition targets.
• Do not attack the CTFd platform, scoreboard, registration system, or event infrastructure.
• Do not intentionally disrupt, destroy, or interfere with another team's progress.
• Denial-of-service (DoS/DDoS) attacks are prohibited.
• Automated tools and scripts are permitted when used responsibly and within challenge boundaries.
• Report unintended vulnerabilities in competition infrastructure to an organizer immediately.

4. Flags and Scoring

• Submit flags through the official CTFd platform.
• Sharing flags, solutions, or challenge answers between teams is prohibited.
• Teams must earn points through their own efforts.
• Attempting to manipulate the scoreboard or exploit the scoring system is prohibited.
• In the event of a tie via score, the next deciding factor will be which team submitted the flag first.

5. Outside Resources and Collaboration

• Publicly available resources, documentation, and research materials are permitted.
• Internet searches and cybersecurity tools are allowed (and encouraged)
• Collaboration between members of the same team is encouraged.
• Collaboration between competing teams on active challenges is prohibited.
• Sharing challenge solutions publicly during the competition is prohibited.
• AI-assisted tools are COMPLETELY DISALLOWED (Ovbiously we can't fully account for things such as Gemini in searches)

6. Technical Restrictions

• Do not perform attacks against systems outside the competition scope.
• Do not attempt to access or interfere with other teams' accounts or devices.
• Do not intentionally overload challenge services.
• Do not modify shared challenge environments in ways that prevent others from completing challenges.
• If a challenge appears broken, notify an organizer rather than attempting to disrupt the infrastructure.

7. Questions and Support

• Direct challenge-related questions to competition organizers.
• Organizers may provide hints or clarifications at their discretion.
• Any clarifications affecting competitive fairness may be shared with all teams.
• Report technical issues as soon as possible.

8. Violations and Disqualification

Violations may result in:

• A warning from competition organizers.
• Removal of points or invalidation of solves.
• Temporary suspension from the competition.
• Disqualification from the event.

Consequences will be determined by competition organizers based on the severity of the violation.

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Good Luck, Fledglings!

Challenge yourself, learn something new, and most importantly, have fun!

Hack responsibly. Compete fairly. Fly high.

— UNG CyberHawks CTF Organizing Team