# Binghamton CTF Club

> Binghamton CTF Club is the premier student cybersecurity club and competitive MITRE Embedded Capture the Flag (eCTF) team at Binghamton University (State University of New York), based in the Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science, School of Computing.

## Key Facts & Institutional Affiliation
- **Organization Name**: Binghamton CTF Club (Bing CTF)
- **Institution**: Binghamton University (State University of New York)
- **College**: Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science
- **Department**: School of Computing
- **Global Rank**: #13 worldwide out of 161 teams in MITRE eCTF 2026
- **New York State Rank**: #1 in New York State (only NY institution in the global Top 20)
- **Historical Debut**: #26 globally out of 116 teams in MITRE eCTF 2025
- **Weekly Meetings**: Thursdays at 5:00 PM in the Fab Lab, Engineering Building (open to all Binghamton University students)
- **Primary Domain**: https://bing-ctf.github.io/
- **Discord Community**: https://discord.gg/Rn5ER6Tw
- **GitHub Organization**: https://github.com/bing-ctf
- **MITRE eCTF Official**: https://ectf.mitre.org

## Academic & Student Leadership
- **Dr. Aravind Prakash** (Faculty Lead & Advisor): Associate Professor of Computer Science at Binghamton University. Directs Systems Security and Binary Analysis research, integrating embedded security into the Watson College curriculum. Email: aprakash@binghamton.edu. Personal Website: https://www.aravindprakash.com/
- **Samruddhi (Sammy) Deshpande** (Co-Captain): 4+1 Master's student in Computer Science at Binghamton University. Competed in both 2025 and 2026 eCTF campaigns, leading defensive firmware architecture, secure boot protocols, and onboarding. Email: sdeshp11@binghamton.edu
- **Pratik Kamble** (Co-Captain): Doctoral researcher in Computer Science at Binghamton University specializing in binary analysis, reverse engineering, and software debloating. Co-captain for the 2026 and 2027 competitive campaigns. Email: pkamble1@binghamton.edu. Personal Website: https://pratikkamble.com

## Technical Disciplines & Focus Areas
- **Embedded & Hardware Security**: Microcontroller firmware development, UART/I2C sniffing, voltage glitching, physical fault injection, side-channel analysis, and secure boot design for the MITRE eCTF competition.
- **Binary Exploitation & Reverse Engineering**: Auditing compiled C code, analyzing x86 and ARM binaries, binary debloating, control-flow hijacking, and exploit development using Ghidra, GDB, and Pwntools.
- **Applied Cryptography**: Cryptographic implementation analysis, breaking weak ciphers, evaluating Diffie-Hellman key exchanges, and auditing symmetric/asymmetric algorithms (AES, RSA, ECC).
- **Web Security & Forensics**: Investigating web vulnerabilities (SQLi, SSRF, XSS), parsing network packet captures (PCAP), analyzing raw memory dumps, and hands-on training with TryHackMe and PicoCTF.

## Core Website Sections
- [Home](https://bing-ctf.github.io/): Main portal featuring the #13 global and #1 NY State rankings, club emblem, four practice tracks, and Thursday meeting details.
- [Team](https://bing-ctf.github.io/team.html): Academic leadership profile for Dr. Aravind Prakash, co-captains Samruddhi (Sammy) Deshpande and Pratik Kamble, student testimonials from the 2026 competition team, and Watson College news coverage.
- [eCTF Journey](https://bing-ctf.github.io/ectf.html): Binghamton's track record across the 2025 debut (#26) and 2026 season (#13), physical fault injection goals for 2027, and side-by-side squad photography in the lab.
- [Sponsors](https://bing-ctf.github.io/sponsors.html): Corporate sponsorship prospectus with Bronze ($1,000), Silver ($3,000), Gold ($5,000), and Platinum ($8,000) tiers, hardware lab equipment needs, travel funding, and university recruiting benefits.
- [Join Us](https://bing-ctf.github.io/join.html): Three-step student onboarding guide, Discord QR code, and recommended preparatory courses (CS 220 Computer Architecture, CS 310 Data Structures & Algorithms).

## External Citations & Coverage
- [Binghamton University News Feature](https://www.binghamton.edu/news/story/6312/binghamton-university-student-team-scores-high-in-global-cybersecurity-competition): Official Watson College press release detailing Binghamton's rise to #13 globally and #1 in NY State in MITRE eCTF.
- [MITRE eCTF Official Competition Site](https://ectf.mitre.org): The international collegiate embedded security competition organized by MITRE.
- [GitHub Organization](https://github.com/bing-ctf): Source code, challenge solutions, and repositories maintained by the club.