During the CTF

Challenge Updates

If for some reason the challenge attachment is broken, it can be fixed or left for the competitors to solve as everyone has the same problem. Though if the attachment is updated, there should be an announcement pointing out that this was done.

It is also extremely important to be careful modifying the challenge itself mid-competition as it can affect other teams' progress. If any team was able to solve the challenge, it should generally be accepted as possible to solve and should not get any edits even if a team later on is able to find unintended solutions. Instead, unintended solutions could get a "revenge" challenge, though note that it can be compared against the original challenge which could reveal the unintended solution and may increase the importance of solving the challenge due to giving additional points compared to rest of the challenges.

Hints

As mentioned before in the preparations section, one should avoid giving any individual hints to competitors to keep the competition fair. Instead, it is common to ask for challenge progress around the 50% and 75% mark of the competition, have competitors open a ticket with their current progress, and let the challenge author decide what the hint could be and if it should be released at all.

After a challenge has been solved, it should not receive any additional hints afterward due to being unfair towards the teams that solved it without the hint. Teams are also usually international and one should consider "timezone advantage" as a factor when deciding on when a hint is released.

Support

It is common to receive multiple different types of support tickets during the CTF. Although not strictly required, you should aim to have a couple of different people (preferably in different timezones) that are able to assist with the tickets. Additionally, some people should also have access and the required knowledge to the infrastructure in case challenge's remote is experiencing issues.