CyberTacticsForgeENRICH / EXPLORE / EMPOWER Pittsburgh roots. Shared purpose.
pps{CTF}

pps{CyberTechniquesFest} / Pittsburgh cybersecurity

Learn the techniques.
Capture the flag.

Your next session

Find your meeting below.

All times are Pittsburgh time (Eastern). The full schedule is always available.

Fall 2026 schedule

Tentative · All times Eastern

Select a lesson’s resource link to get started. Dates may change; Saturday times and competition slots will be announced separately.

  1. Tue, Oct 207–9 PM ET · Teams

    Intro and overview

    Intro and overview, cyber.org range, team formation, outside resources, and picoCTF

  2. Thu, Oct 227–9 PM ET · Teams

    SSHerlock

    Open SSHerlock →
  3. Tue, Oct 277–9 PM ET · Teams

    HashHound

    Open HashHound →
  4. Thu, Oct 297–9 PM ET · Teams

    Mini-Challenge

  5. Sat, Oct 31Time to be announced

    Optional Hands-On Lab

    Environment setup, VM/network familiarity, and open challenge time

  6. Tue, Nov 3No meeting

    No session — Election Day

    PPS / no school

  7. Thu, Nov 57–9 PM ET · Teams

    Mini-Challenge Review

  8. Tue, Nov 107–9 PM ET · Teams

    CyberCartographer

    Open CyberCartographer →
  9. Thu, Nov 127–9 PM ET · Teams

    MsDisin

    Open MsDisin →
  10. Tue, Nov 177–9 PM ET · Teams

    Mini-Challenge

  11. Thu, Nov 197–9 PM ET · Teams

    Mini-Challenge Review

  12. Sat, Nov 21Time to be announced

    Optional Mini-CTF / Open Lab

  13. Tue, Nov 24–Nov 26No meeting

    Thanksgiving Pause

    No required sessions

  14. Tue, Dec 17–9 PM ET · Teams

    LANgeist

    Open LANgeist →
  15. Thu, Dec 37–9 PM ET · Teams

    MALchemist

    Open MALchemist →
  16. Tue, Dec 87–9 PM ET · Teams

    Mini-Challenge

  17. Thu, Dec 107–9 PM ET · Teams

    Portalord

    Open Portalord →
  18. Sat, Dec 12Time to be announced

    Full-Environment Lab

    Multi-role practice and competition preparation

  19. Tue, Dec 157–9 PM ET · Teams

    8ball

    Open 8ball →
  20. Thu, Dec 177–9 PM ET · Teams

    Cyberus

    Tournament overview

    Open Cyberus →
  21. Sat, Dec 19Time to be announced

    Optional Open Range / Technical Check

  22. Mon, Dec 21–Dec 23Team slots to be scheduled

    pps{CyberTechniquesFest} Competition Window

    Exact team slots to be scheduled separately

  23. Wed, Dec 237–9 PM ET · Teams

    After Action Review & fall closeout

    After Action Review, results, recognition, fall closeout, and pps{CyberTacticsForce} interest — following the final tournament slots

Explicit instruction. Real flags. A technical path from absolute beginner to expert, with the knowledge to understand how each technique works.

Start learning →View the fall season ↓

Earn evidence for your next opportunity →
The Verified Competency Record connects demonstrated skills to college, scholarship, and career applications.

The foundation for every participant.Everyone participating in a Forge event is expected to know the basic techniques taught here. Begin with guided lessons, practice in the environment, and grow into more demanding flag hunts.

Techniques Track / pps{CTF} → CyLab

Start with the basics. Keep going.

Absolute beginner → Expert

01 / Learn

Build your foundation.

Work through explicit instruction in the classes below. Learn the tools, the technical background, and the basic techniques behind the flags.

Start with SSHerlock →

02 / Practice

Put it into action.

Apply what you know to actual flags. Use mini-challenges, labs, and reviews to build confidence and connect techniques across the pps{CTF} environment.

Find a practice session →

03 / Advance

Hunt further.

Capture more flags in the environment, tackle harder problems, and progress toward expert challenges and national flag-hunting competitions.

Explore what comes next →

VCR / Verified Competency Record

Build skills. Leave with evidence.

Turn what you demonstrate into something you can take forward: an evidence-backed record for college applications, scholarship consideration, and your résumé.

CyberTacticsForge manages the Verified Competency Record for events it hosts. Through participation, students can earn verified competencies by demonstrating what they can actually do inside a Forge environment. The VCR translates that observable activity into durable evidence of individual competency.

College applicationsShow admissions readers specific skills and the work behind them.
Scholarship opportunitiesSupport applications with demonstrated ability, initiative, and growth.
Résumés & job applicationsGive employers concrete examples of what you have done and can explain.
The scoreboard answers “Who won?”The VCR answers “What can this person demonstrably do?”

01 / Technical competencies

Show the skill.

Find and analyze an artifact, harden a system, change a configuration, or restore a service. Flags and automated checks can provide evidence of specific accomplishments.

02 / Operational competencies

Show your judgment.

Diagnose, prioritize, recover, and adapt as conditions change. Service availability, system state, and activity logs can capture work that a single flag cannot.

03 / Professional evidence

Explain your work.

A GitHub write-up or after-action review (AAR) records what you encountered, what you did, and what you learned—especially during CyberTacticsEngagement.

How demonstrated work becomes a verified record

Each challenge starts with an intent: the competency the participant should demonstrate. Evidence requirements follow that intent and the actual source environment.

  1. Intent
  2. Evidence sources
  3. Validation
  4. Competency record

Flags can show discovery or analysis. State checks show whether a required change succeeded. Uptime shows whether a service stayed available. Telemetry and event logs show activity. A participant’s AAR adds explanation and reflection. Together, these can support one competency record; competition scoring remains separate.

Illustrative competency / Network service recovery

Restore SSH while preserving firewall protection.

Evidence could show that the participant diagnosed the outage, restored the service, allowed access from the management network, and preserved the restriction on public access. The record connects the demonstrated competency to its environment, supporting evidence, and verification.

Your record reflects your contribution. Individual environments provide clearer attribution. In collaborative force-on-force events, team outcomes need evidence of the individual’s actions, supported by their own GitHub artifact or AAR. A team result alone cannot establish what each participant demonstrated.

Participation creates the opportunity. Demonstrated competency gives you evidence to carry into your next application.

The technical foundation

Your class directory.

Open a lesson and get to work.

NetworkSSHerlockOpen lesson → HostHashHoundOpen lesson → NetworkCyberCartographerOpen lesson → HostMsDisinOpen lesson → NetworkLANgeistOpen lesson → HostMALchemistOpen lesson → NetworkPortalordOpen lesson → Host8ballOpen lesson → HostCyberusOpen lesson →

Take Pittsburgh further

Where the techniques can take you.

Keep hunting flags

Go beyond the local range.

Build toward national flag-hunting competitions, including opportunities through Carnegie Mellon University’s CyLab Security Academy. Bring Pittsburgh’s talent to a wider stage.

A possible career directionBug bounty hunting and code-focused red teaming.

Explore CyLab Security Academy ↗

Put your foundation to work

Ready for the Tactics Track?

Use your technical competency in a live team environment. Follow the Tactics Track at ForgeOps: build defensive skills through CyberPatriot, then attack and defend in CyberTacticsEngagement as a Digital Operations Group.

Explore the Tactics Track at ForgeOps →

Built with community

Pittsburgh talent. Shared effort.

With appreciation for Carnegie Mellon University’s CTF community and BlackGirlsHack for supplying coaches and mentors.