For PlaidCTF a few weeks ago, I created a series of problems titled “idIoT”. In this series of challenges, players got the opportunity to attack two websites, a Google Home, an FTP server, a WiFi camera, and a Particle Photon. Participants seemed to enjoy these challenges, so I thought I’d do a little writeup on the creation of these challenges and my own solution guide, like the one Zach did for S-Exploitation last week.

In preparation for PlaidCTF 2018 I designed a two part web challenge called S-Exploitation (Paren Trap and the Wizard of OSS). Although I intended the first part to be an easier web challenge, and the second to be a tricky follow up, the former had only 16 solves and the latter just 2. Since I had a number of people ask me for clarification after the CTF, and to help other organizers to learn from it, I’ve described below how S-exploitation was designed and meant to be solved.