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 professionals. Dust off your disassembler, put a new coat of oil on your old debugger, and get your favorite chat client ready to futilely beg your friends for help. As always, this contest is designed for individuals, not teams, and there is only one track of challenges. The contest runs for six full weeks and ends on Oct. 13, 2017, at 8pm ET.

This year’s contest is the largest Flare-On Challenge ever, with a total of 12 challenges. The challenges will once again be x86 and Windows operating system centric, with some select challenges involving other architectures such as Linux, Android, and Arduino. This is one of the only Windows-centric CTF challenges out there and we have crafted it to represent the skills and challenges of our workload on the FLARE team.

If you complete the Flare-On Challenge you will receive a prize and recognition on the Flare-On website for your accomplishment. Prize details will be revealed when the contest ends, but trust us, it is something that will be coveted and envied by your peers. In prior years, winners earned rodeo belt buckles, replica police badges, and challenge coins.

Check the Flare-On website for a live countdown timer, to view the previous year’s winners, and to download past challenges for practice. For official news and information, we will be using the Twitter hashtag: #flareon4.