Announcing the Eighth Annual Flare-On Challenge

The FLARE team is once again hosting its annual Flare-On challenge, now in its eighth year. Take this opportunity to enjoy some extreme social distancing by solving fun puzzles to test your mettle and learn new tricks on your path to reverse engineering excellence. The contest will begin at 8:00...

Flare-On 7 Challenge Solutions

We are thrilled to announce the conclusion of the seventh annual Flare-On challenge. This year proved to be the most difficult challenge we’ve produced, with the lowest rate of finishers. This year’s winners are truly the elite of the elite! Lucky for them, all 260 winners will receive this...

Announcing the Seventh Annual Flare-On Challenge

The Front Line Applied Research & Expertise FLARE team is honored to announce that the popular Flare-On challenge will return for a triumphant seventh year. Ongoing global events proved no match against our passion for creating challenging and fun puzzles to test and hone the skills of aspiring a...

2019 Flare-On Challenge Solutions

We are pleased to announce the conclusion of the sixth annual Flare-On Challenge. The popularity of this event continues to grow and this year we saw a record number of players as well as finishers. We will break down the numbers later in the post, but right now let’s look at the fun stuff: the...

Announcing the Sixth Annual Flare-On Challenge

The FireEye Labs Advanced Reverse Engineering FLARE team is thrilled to announce that the popular Flare-On reverse engineering challenge will return for the sixth straight year. The contest will begin at 8:00 p.m. ET on Aug. 16, 2019. This is a CTF-style challenge for all active and aspiring...

2018 Flare-On Challenge Solutions

We are pleased to announce the conclusion of the fifth annual Flare-On Challenge. The numbers are in and we can safely say that this was by far the most difficult challenge we’ve ever hosted. We plan to reduce the difficulty next year, so it may be that the 114 people who solved this year’s...

2017 Flare-On Challenge Solutions

Another year, another successful Flare-On Challenge. I’d first like to thank our challenge authors for their hard work developing each of the challenges, and also for writing up their solutions: Challenge 1: Dominik Weber @Invalidhandle Challenge 2: Nhan Huynh Challenge 3: Matt Williams...

Announcing the Fourth Annual Flare-On Challenge

The fourth annual Flare-On Challenge – the FireEye Labs Advanced Reverse Engineering FLARE team’s yearly reverse engineering contest – is scheduled to kick off on Sept. 1, 2017, at 8pm ET. This is a CTF-style challenge for all active and aspiring reverse engineers, malware analysts, and security...

FLARE Script Series: Querying Dynamic State using the FireEye Labs Query-Oriented Debugger (flare-qdb)

Introduction This post continues the FireEye Labs Advanced Reverse Engineering FLARE script series. Here, we introduce flare-qdb, a command-line utility and Python module based on vivisect for querying and altering dynamic binary state conveniently, iteratively, and at scale. flare-qdb works on...

2016 Flare-On Challenge Solutions

I would like to thank the challenge authors this year: 1. Alexander Rich 2. Matt Williams @0xmwilliams 3. Dominik Weber 4. James T. Bennett @jtbennettjr 5. Tyler Dean 6. Josh Homan 7. Alex Berry 8. Nick Harbour @nickharbour 9. Jon Erickson @2130706433 10. FireEye Labs Advanced Vulnerability...

2016 Flare-On Challenge Solutions

I would like to thank the challenge authors this year: 1. Alexander Rich 2. Matt Williams @0xmwilliams 3. Dominik Weber 4. James T. Bennett @jtbennettjr 5. Tyler Dean 6. Josh Homan 7. Alex Berry 8. Nick Harbour @nickharbour 9. Jon Erickson @2130706433 10. FireEye Labs Advanced Vulnerability...

Announcing the Third Annual Flare-On Challenge

Let fall be the season for reverse engineering! On Sept. 23, 2016, the FireEye Labs Advanced Reverse Engineering FLARE team will be hosting its third annual Flare-On reverse engineering contest with a designated start time of 8pm ET. This is a CTF-style challenge for all active and aspiring rever...