Rules

Each team should include maximum of 4 team members (i.e. 1 – 4 members). All team members must fulfil the entry requirements stated in the Eligibility.

Representatives of the Contest Organising Committee, members of the project team and supplier(s) of the Contest are not eligible for joining the Contest.

The top 10 teams with the highest scores in secondary school, tertiary institution and open categories and the top 5 teams with the highest scores in international category of the qualifying round, after reviewed by the organiser ( including identity verification of the registered participants, submission of a proof of answer (write-up) for three of the solved challenges selected by the organisers and etc. ), will be automatically qualify for the finals. In case of a tie in score, the final placing will be decided by time.

If any issues occur during the Contest, participants shall report them to the Organisers immediately.

Don’t attack the CTF platform, such as:

• Modify the scoreboard;

• Generate excessive load;

• Launch denial of service attack;

• Don’t attack any machine or service other than the designated ones.

No social engineering attack.

Don’t cheat or interrupt the Contest, such as:

• Share flags;

• Ask for flags;

• Delete flags;

• Intentionally prevent other teams from submitting flags.

In the chat room:

• Don’t send any message which contains violent, obscene or indecent content.

• Don’t upload any file which infringes any copyrights and intellectual property rights.

Do not share any content or details of the CTF challenges with anyone before the end of the contest.

Any abuse or violation of the Rules will result in penalty as stated in the Terms and Conditions.

The rules, gameplay, terms and conditions for the finals will be separately notified to the advancing teams after the preliminary round. The top 10 teams with the highest scores in secondary school, tertiary institution and open categories and the top 5 teams with the highest scores in international category of the qualifying round, after reviewed by the organiser ( including identity verification of the registered participants, submission of a proof of answer (write-up) for three of the solved challenges selected by the organisers and etc. ), will be qualify for the finals. In case of a tie in score, the final placing will be decided by time.

Remark: If AI is used to solve the challenges, the write-up must not simply list the prompts used or provide the final AI-generated answer. Instead, participants should clearly document the step-by-step process of how AI was utilized to analyze the challenge, identify relevant information, refine the approach, and derive the final solution. The write-up should demonstrate the reasoning workflow and human verification involved throughout the problem-solving process.