HootCTF – Platform

HootCTF is a comprehensive platform for hosting and participating in Capture The Flag cybersecurity competitions. My work focused on designing an intuitive user interface for challenges across various categories such as web exploitation, cryptography, reverse engineering, and more.

The design includes visualizations for a real-time scoreboard, dynamic challenge reveals, hint systems, and team management capabilities. The interface is designed to be intuitive, visually appealing, and user-friendly for both competition organizers and participants.

The HootCTF dashboard features a modern, intuitive interface with a dark theme that's easy on the eyes during long hacking sessions. The navigation sidebar provides quick access to challenges, scoreboard, team management, and other essential features. The main area showcases available challenges with clear categories and difficulty indicators, while real-time notifications keep participants updated on team progress and competition events. The statistics panel displays current rankings, solved challenges, and upcoming events, giving teams a comprehensive overview of their performance and competition status.

The Challenges page organizes cybersecurity tasks into clear categories like Web Exploitation, Cryptography, Reverse Engineering, and Forensics. Each challenge displays its point value, difficulty level, and completion status with intuitive color coding. The interface allows participants to filter challenges by category or difficulty, with a search function to quickly locate specific tasks. When selected, challenges reveal detailed descriptions, downloadable resources, and hint options. The clean layout ensures participants can easily track their progress and strategically choose which challenges to tackle next.

The Profile section provides participants with a comprehensive overview of their competition performance and personal achievements. Users can customize their avatar, update contact information, and manage security settings. The profile dashboard displays statistics like total points earned, challenges completed across different categories, and badges awarded for special achievements. A performance graph tracks progress over time, while the activity feed shows recent actions and solved challenges. The interface also allows users to connect with team members and view team-wide statistics, fostering collaboration during competitions.

The Leaderboard provides real-time rankings of all participants and teams in the competition. The interface displays comprehensive statistics including total points, challenges solved, last submission time, and solve streaks. Users can filter the leaderboard by country, organization type, or category performance. The dynamic design updates instantly when new flags are captured, with subtle animations highlighting position changes. Top performers are prominently featured with special highlighting, and hovering over entries reveals additional performance metrics. This creates an engaging, competitive atmosphere that motivates participants throughout the event.