Jeopardy CTFs test players’ skills in a variety of categories, the most common of which are as follows:
Some up and coming categories are:
The Misc category can be used for an assortment of challenges that don’t fall exactly into one of the above or if there is not enough of a specific category to warrant its own.
The basic idea is that players attempt self-isolated challenges to obtain a proof-of-work, i.e. a flag, in order to prove they have carried out the practical steps required to solve the challenge.
CTFs should focus on techniques rather than tools; it is rarely a good idea for a CTF challenge to be solvable by an automated tool, e.g. an SQL injection challenge solvable by the popular SQLMap.
BEFORE any work is done on creating actual challenges, each challenge creator should write down a rough draft of the idea they have for a challenge, including resources to any past challenges that served as inspiration. The draft should include a general overview of the challenge and a precise, step-by-step overview on how a player should go about solving that challenge.