142 pages across 12 categories

Athena WikiLearning the Art of Hacking

Practical walkthroughs, payloads, and checklists for Jeopardy-style CTFs - from beginner to advanced.

Browse DocsGetting Started

Categories

Explore techniques across all major CTF disciplines.

Getting Started8 pages

What is a CTF, environment setup, team strategyBeginner

Tools10 pages

Essential toolkit, GDB, Ghidra, Burp Suite, pwntoolsBeginner-Intermediate

Binary Exploitation14 pages

Stack overflow, ROP chains, heap, format stringsBeginner-Expert

Cryptography23 pages

Classical ciphers, RSA/ECC attacks, lattices, AES, hashingBeginner-Advanced

Web Exploitation29 pages

SQLi, XSS, SSRF, SSTI, JWT, cache poisoning, LFI/RFIBeginner-Advanced

Reverse Engineering15 pages

Static/dynamic analysis, Go/Rust/.NET, anti-debuggingBeginner-Intermediate

OSINT7 pages

Google dorking, geolocation, social media, metadataBeginner-Intermediate

Steganography10 pages

Image, audio, text, and file steganographyBeginner-Intermediate

Forensics9 pages

Disk, memory, packet capture, log analysisBeginner-Intermediate

Cloud Security7 pages

AWS, Azure & GCP attacks, S3, IAM escalation, KubernetesBeginner-Advanced

AI / LLM Security5 pages

Prompt injection, jailbreaks, LLM agent exploitationBeginner-Advanced

Misc5 pages

Pyjails, blockchain, scripting, regex challengesIntermediate-Advanced

Quick Start Paths

Structured learning paths based on your goals.

Complete Beginner

  1. 1Getting Started
  2. 2Getting Started → Setting Up Your Environment
  3. 3Tools → Essential Toolkit
  4. 4Crypto → Encoding vs Encryption
  5. 5Build a local practice checklist

Web Hacking

  1. 1Web → Recon
  2. 2Web → SQL Injection Basics
  3. 3Web → XSS (Reflected, Stored, DOM)
  4. 4Web → SSRF, SSTI, XXE
  5. 5Apply the techniques in a lab

Binary Exploitation

  1. 1Pwn → Linux Protections
  2. 2Pwn → Stack Buffer Overflow
  3. 3Pwn → ROP Chains
  4. 4Pwn → ret2libc
  5. 5Revisit the exploit walkthroughs

Cryptography

  1. 1Crypto → Encoding vs Encryption
  2. 2Crypto → Classical Ciphers
  3. 3Crypto → RSA Basics → RSA Attacks
  4. 4Crypto → AES Modes → ECB/CBC Attacks
  5. 5Work through the crypto exercises

Cloud Security

  1. 1Cloud → AWS Metadata (IMDS)
  2. 2Cloud → S3 Misconfiguration
  3. 3Cloud → IAM Privilege Escalation
  4. 4Cloud → Kubernetes Basics
  5. 5Cloud → Secrets in CI/CD

Essential Tools

Get set up with the core CTF toolkit in one command.

terminal
# Python tools
pip3 install pwntools pycryptodome gmpy2 z3-solver

# Ruby tools
gem install zsteg one_gadget

# System tools
sudo apt install ghidra gdb exiftool binwalk steghide wireshark

# GDB enhancement
bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://gef.blah.cat/sh)"

See the full Essential Toolkit guide for detailed setup instructions.

Start Learning

Every page covers one specific technique with code examples, checklists, and cross-linked related topics.

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