Date: December 2–8, 2023 Format: Jeopardy (two parallel tracks) Tracks: High School + Undergraduate Organizers: WiCS (Women in Computer Science) + Shellphish Sponsor: NSF AI ACTION Institute
The 2023 iCTF asked one question: what happens when AI and hacking collide?
As large language models began reshaping the security landscape, the iCTF brought the future into the competition. For the first time, a new LLM challenge category appeared alongside traditional pwn, crypto, and reversing. Participants jailbroke chatbots, escaped AI-generated sandboxes, bypassed content filters, and manipulated machine learning models.
The theme reflected a broader reality: AI systems are both powerful new attack surfaces and novel tools for defenders. The iCTF framed this tension as a series of puzzles — from injecting prompts to escape an "AI Calculator" to reverse-engineering a neural network's hidden behavior.
| Challenge | Category |
|---|---|
| CI Ninja | LLM |
| CI Ninja 2 | LLM |
| A(I)PI Escape | LLM |
| aimazing | misc |
| bugdget | misc |
| IslandParty | misc |
| Lost Album | misc |
| Mystical Castle | misc |
| supermart | misc |
| Find the Deep Faker! | data science |
| Stop the model thief! | data science |
| bytes_in_pairs | data science |
| escape_from_markov | data science |
| Pixel Mirage (part 1) | data science |
| Pixel Mirage (part 2) | data science |
| rustyneurone | pwn |
| Snake Game | reverse engineering |
| token_of_appreciation | reverse engineering |
| ai_lock | reverse engineering |
| BrokenWords | crypto |
Includes easier variants of many undergraduate challenges plus exclusive
puzzles: parakeet, parakeet_v2, rock paper scissors, Trendy,
Lost in Translation, Evil Model, Tensormania, Stop the spammer!,
guesstimate, Who is Waldo?, plus shared challenges like AI Calculator,
AI Cryptic Game, CI Ninja, bytes_in_pairs, BrokenWords, and Mystical Castle.
Full CTFd exports are preserved locally with all challenge files, flags, submissions, and scoreboards:
| Path | Contents |
|---|---|
CTFd_Archive/iCTF 2023 - Undergraduate - Competition.2023-12-21_16_58_41.zip |
Undergraduate track full export |
CTFd_Archive/iCTF 2023 - High School - Competition.2023-12-21_17_01_03.zip |
High school track full export |
CTFd_Archive/iCTF 2023 - Undergraduate - Scoreboard.pdf |
Final scoreboard |
CTFd_Archive/iCTF 2023 - High School - Scoreboard.pdf |
Final scoreboard |
CTFd_Archive/iCTF 2023 - *.pdf |
Admin panel, challenges, users, front page screenshots |