The FireEye Labs Advanced Reverse Engineering (FLARE) team’s annual reverse engineering challenge will start at 8:00 p.m. ET on Aug. 24, 2018. This is a CTF-style challenge for all active and aspiring reverse engineers, malware analysts, and security professionals. So 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. Once again, this contest is designed for individuals, not teams, and it is a single track of challenges. The contest runs for six full weeks and ends at 8:00 p.m. ET on Oct. 5, 2018.

This year’s contest will once again host a total of 12 challenges covering architectures from x86, x64 on Windows, Java, .NET, Webassembly, and Linux, with special appearances of Bootloaders and Bootkits. 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 permanent recognition on the flare-on.com website for your accomplishment. Prize details will be revealed when the contest ends, but as always, it will be something that will be coveted and envied by your peers. In prior years we’ve had rodeo belt buckles, replica police badges, challenge coins, and a huge pin.

Check out the Flare-On website for a live countdown timer and to see the previous year’s winners. For official news and support we will be using the Twitter hashtag: #flareon5.