> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://niklas-heringer.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Securing Silver: My 2nd Place Win at CYBERSECURITY CONFERENCE 2025 CTF in Mannheim - URL: https://niklas-heringer.com/field-notes/cybersecurity-conference-2025-ctf-mannheim/ - Published: 2025-11-14T20:46:55.000Z - Updated: 2025-11-14T20:46:55.000Z - Description: My first comprehensive CTF experience at the CYBERSECURITY CONFERENCE 2025 in Mannheim, where my colleague and I secured 2nd place! We dive into the learning, the race, and essential tips on how to truly prepare (and thrive) in a 24-hour CTF challenge. - Author: Niklas Heringer - Tags: ctf, conference, mannheim, binary-exploitation, web-exploitation, web-forensics, learnings, field-notes > "*HE'S AAALIVE!*" Did you miss me? Traffic has gone up lately, which i found very funny as i hadn't had the time to post anything lately. Doing my full-time internship at [ERNW](https://ernw.de/?ref=niklas-heringer.com) is honestly just **insane**, in the most positive sense! ## Will there be more posting? **Yes.** Be thrilled, i am swifting my content around a bit, quantity -> quality. > I'm so excited to see what you will think of the next upcoming post.. **the longest and most indepth i ever did hihi.** Well, why do i now post? ## What is this about now? I'm absolutely thrilled to share some exciting news from the past weekend! A fellow student at the [University of Applied Sciences Mannheim](https://www.hs-mannheim.de/?ref=niklas-heringer.com) and I had the incredible opportunity to compete in the ["Capture The Flag" (CTF) Challenge](https://cybersecurityconference2025.ctfd.io/?ref=niklas-heringer.com) at the [CYBERSECURITY CONFERENCE 2025](https://www.cybersecurityconference.de/?ref=niklas-heringer.com) in Mannheim, and we're incredibly proud to announce that we placed second overall! ## Briefly about the Conference I couldn't watch that much of it as the challenge had a 24h timeframe, ripping through the two days. > What i saw was interesting, not quite my focus with more compliance- and business-heavy talks, manager to manager, yet still a great number of people showed up and contributed. ### What I loved: Promoting awesome Master's theses I loved that they gave out a price (also in money) to excelling master's theses. Second place this year was about zero-knowledge cryptography and shuffles, it sounded so interestig but i was so tired.. I HAVE to find her work and post about it! First place was about challenges in new kinds of attacks concerning modern cryptography, again, i will find it and get to know more. ## The Challenge The CTF Challenge itself was an intense and exhilarating experience. > We nearly got first place, yet an awesome competitor we got to meet in person at the award ceremony **overtook us with a Buffer Overflow flag last minute**. Well, not quite last minute but pretty late into the 24h race when our mind was long since gone and **learning Buffer Overflow attacks from scratch** didn't really come in easily - even though we learned so many new things in that day. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/a1/92/a19235e1-df52-43a1-9f25-1151fdb92c82/content/images/2025/11/therace.png) *See how close our cute red line came to securing first? Hihi but big shoutouts to the awesome guy from* [*ABB*](https://new.abb.com/de?ref=niklas-heringer.com) *who absolutely killed the challenge.* Infact, we tackled a wide array of categories, pushing (way past) our skills in web exploitation, binary exploitation, cryptography, steganography, forensics, ... ### The best thing about CTFs **The learning**. It is a **fantastic** test of problem-solving under pressure, of thinking creatively, of not letting yourself get frustrated just too easily. Now the **Learnings of my first CTF** will be a separate article, as i already mentioned. Yet right now I'll give you the rundown on **how to prepare for one.** ## How to actually prepare for a CTF Maybe you're the kind of professional that knows binary exploitation, buffer overflow attacks, steganography or the 100 different topics that are **frequently covered in CTFs.** > Yet i bet you aren't. **DON'T** spend 2 weeks ahead reading article after article, stressing out about your payload lists, making sure you know "that one trick with the LSBs in an image.." **Relax.** In my oppinion this is not nearly the most important thing to do. ### CTFs are Fun: So Enjoy Them Partaking in a CTF is something incredible, extraordinary and extremely fun.. if you let it be. > **Excitement will flush out all knowledge you could never really apply out of you**. You'll **have to** learn stuf on the spot. ### "But there's no time" More often than not, there is! Take it for yourself. **Don't stress out checking the scoreboard every 2 minutes.** I am myself a fairly competitive person, but let me tell you, the feeling of a solution finally clicking and you getting a step further in a challenge is **a thousand times better** than being up 10pts from some other team. ### How to learn during a CTF While you'd normally go through maybe a HackTheBox Academy section or a youtube video series, i'll admit that while you should always take your time, you also won't have it to spend 6hrs on every single challenge. **Setting a focus, while neglecting other challenges, will be necessary** if you're not part of a bigger team where every challenge can be distributed among team members. So here are my personal tips to **really learn and thrive in a CTF**: 1. Write things down. Make sketches. Analyze deeply, you'll need to have a rather big problem set **sketched out in front of you** so you can take notes and organize yourself. Speaking of organization... 2. **Pretend you're a scientist, because in many ways, you are.** PLAN out what you're going to do next, WRITE DOWN what you already tried, why and why it failed. **Especially** if the challenge is of a longer time format, you'll end up totally lost half-through, with 16 python scripts, 10 scrappy notes, 15 files and payloads and you don't know what a single one of them does. *"What the hell is in `exploit_final_2.py`?"* Document clearly, pretend you'd write your **scientific diary**. It's worth it! 3. Google for " exploit github" - the best hits i found this way. In other cases, **focus on universities!** Their slide-decks are often hands-on and to the point, while most blog articles (lol not this one) just want to a) **sell you a product**, b) **convince you they're an expert so you'll buy their product** or c) babble all around, with no single line of code or math in the whole article. 4. I personally like having Gemini in [strict learning mode](https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/education/guided-learning/?ref=niklas-heringer.com) at all times, making sure it'll take you through issues patiently without EVER providing you with a straight answer - **you'll code, think and solve yourself, but with a rather reliable learning partner at your side.** 5. **perhaps the most important one:** ### TAKE BREAKS Seriously. Breaks are not something you do when it fits in the workflow. **You need to take them regularly.** As a person with ADHD engraved into my core and soul, i know what it's like to lose yourself in a problem completely, slumping down in your chair and forgetting everything around you including what day it even is. > But you'll solve WAY more problems if you follow a schedule of `break` \- `work` \- `break` \- ... Why don't you search for one of the million pomodoro timers out there, start it and **when the bell rings, you go do something else and ACTUALLY take the break!** This is far from optional, it's inevitable and **vital to any success!** > The biggest 300pt challenge we solved came RIGHT AFTER a big stretched breakfast. Try it and tell me if i'm wrong! --- ## What's up Next You'll be surprised. My up-coming, big post is actually about AI, yet.. not in the way you think hehe. **Check the blog regularly**, learning is always worth your time. I'll also soon upload a breakdown of all i've learned in this CTF. **Stay tuned and healthy.**