Cyber Competitions Overview

The most important cybersecurity competitions fall into different categories, from prestigious Capture the Flag (CTF) events for skilled hackers to defensive competitions for students and challenges focused on specific, high-stakes exploits. The significance of a competition can vary depending on one’s career level and goals, whether it’s for learning, recruiting, or showcasing elite skills. There are also other competitions such as those on the Kaggle website and by Leet code (see weblinks for urls).

  • For top professionals and ethical hackers
  • For university students
  • For high school and younger students
  • General and online competitions

Source: Gemini AI Overview - 10/23/2025

OnAir Post: Cyber Competitions Overview

Backdoors & Breaches

Backdoors & Breaches is a tabletop card game that simulates a cyber attack, designed to train and improve the incident response skills of cybersecurity teams.

Inspired by role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, it offers a fun and conversational approach to a tabletop exercise.

Yes, there are multiple open-source and free online versions of the Backdoors & Breaches card game. While the original physical card deck is sold by Black Hills Information Security, the company supports and promotes the use of open-source projects for playing the game remotely

How to Use Backdoors & Breaches
Black Hills Information Security – 31/03/2022 (59:03)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=pMY2HXUrKsg&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.blackhillsinfosec.com%2F&source_ve_path=MzY4NDIsMjg2NjY

Chapters

0:00 intro to team and Backdoors & Breaches story

2:23 Online open source game copy

3:15 Why we sell physical copies and info for educators

3:40 Red Card (Initial Compromise)

5:28 How the “Detections” were created

7:29 Yellow Card (Pivot and Escalate)

10:56 Brown Card (C2 and EXFIL)

11:35 Purple Card (Persistence)

12:32 Game Setup

13:12 Procedures and rolling your d20

14:34 Procedures being used

15:15 Green Cards (Consultants)

16:00 The Scenario

21:05 Actions that don’t require dice roll, “clarity vs. analysis”

27:30 First Procedure Dice roll and turn cool off counters

30:00 Debug Cautionary word from Jason

32:10 Procedure that works! (successful dice roll)

34:07 Revealing Attack Scenario cards upon successful roll

35:45 understanding the difference in established procedures and other procedures

39:56 Expansion Gray Card (Inject Card)

45:50 “at what point does an incident become a crisis?” Who on your team knows the difference?

52:57 Game Wrap up

53:40 Is this a plausible attack? Always ask that question at the end of the game

58:27 Goodbyes and Thank Yous

OnAir Post: Backdoors & Breaches

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