$ ctf42

THEMCTF 2026

official repo

THEM?!CTF 2026 is an online, worldwide jeopardy-style Capture The Flag competition organized by THEM?!

Join our discord server btw: https://discord.gg/its-them

The event is designed to be beginner-friendly while still offering enough depth for intermediate and experienced players. Challenges will span a wide range of difficulty levels, so newer players can learn and participate/slop, while stronger teams can expect harder problems that require deeper technical skill actual brain functioning.

We plan to feature 40+ challenges across the following categories:

Crypto, Web, Reverse, Pwn, Web3, OSINT, Forensics, and Misc

For THEM?!CTF we put a lot of effort into original yet interesting challenge design. We are paying special attention to reducing low-effort solving aka. slopping and flag-sharing through very intentional challenge design choices, with the goal of making the event fun and more competitive for everyone.

Sharing flags, solutions, or even the slightest hint is STRICTLY forbidden, and will NOT be tolerated.

The use AI is not forbidden, since it cannot be reliably proven, but relying on it too much tends to be embarrassingly obvious.

Slopping will result in a ban.

The event is fully online and open to players worldwide. There is no team size limit.

We wish all players and teams best of luck.

Big thanks to our sponsors: Google Cloud cloud.google.com Kenshi Security kenshisecurity.com NordVPN nordvpn.com NordPass nordpass.com Incogni incogni.com Saily saily.com nexos.ai nexos.ai

Web 5

Challenge Has
Gallery files
My_Product files
The_Style_of_Deception_Static files
bugtracker files
meh files

Pwn 8

Challenge Has
Baby_Shellcode files
Heapshifter files
Quantum_Clipboard files
future_diary_revisited files
neural_link files
past_diary files
phantom files
warm_up files

Reverse 12

Challenge Has
Ancient_Signals files
Calculation files
Entropy_Core files
Fusion files
Good9 files
Old_Cassette files
Petty files
STUPID files
colm files
eyes_chico files
n0t_L1c3ns3 files
question_exclamation files

Crypto 10

Challenge Has
Age_old_problem files
ArtIsMissed_II files
Cascading_Chain files
D3Spacito files
No_7race files
Punctuation. files
THEM_secret_recommendations_sharing files
Velvet_Rope files
chronogram files
gearbox files

Forensics 12

Challenge Has
Confidential_I files
Confidential_II files
HexDumb files
Kenjiros_Notes files
Master_Steganography files
Noisy_space files
Obsufucationmax files
Radio_Chaos files
Worse files
bite files
pixel_drift files
well_well_well files

Misc 12

Challenge Has
Extraterrestrial files
Gibberish files
Git_Art files
Not_guessy files
Pdfglot files
QR_Scramble files
Some_Plays_Libretto files
Terabyte_Connection files
Zero_Disguise files
corrupted files
kanye files
onion_onion_onion files

OSINT 4

Challenge Has
Aviation_History files
OShit files
The_Consultant files
Where_dis files