Week starting: 16th February 2026
This was a full week; CTF authoring, two community sessions, and feedback on challenges in the wild.
What I worked on
Content:
- Published the writeup for “The Sands of Time” (my OSINT challenge from 0xfun CTF)
- Published “Why I Document Everything (Even When It Feels Like Overkill)”
CTF Authoring:
- The CTF I’d been preparing for went live this weekend
- Authored 3 challenges total:
- 2 OSINT challenges
- 1 Crypto challenge
- Feedback was largely positive
- The medium OSINT challenge sparked some complaints about the intentional rabbit holes I’d set (which, to be honest, was exactly the point)
Community Sessions: This was the standout part of the week. I delivered two sessions:
Session 1: HTB Kenya - Mangobleed CVE Sherlock
- Had to postpone and ended up running it at 2200hrs
- Despite the late timing, 30 people stayed from start to finish
- Covered the Mongobleed CVE investigation
Session 2: HTB Uganda - Labs and Academy 101
- First official session for the HTB Uganda Meetup
- 70+ people attended
- Covered HTB Labs basics and Academy navigation
- The turnout was overwhelming and honestly one of the highlights of the week
Learning:
- Didn’t make as much progress on the Active Directory course as planned
- Week was too packed with CTF challenge prep, session delivery and work stuff
Key takeaways
Running sessions at scale especially the Uganda meetup with 70+ people reminded me how hungry the community is for structured learning and guidance. The energy in both sessions was incredible, even the late-night Kenya session.
The feedback on my CTF challenges was interesting. Players loved the concepts but hit friction exactly where I intended (the rabbit holes). That’s the design working as intended, even if it frustrated some solvers.
Challenges and friction
Time was the main constraint this week. Between finalizing CTF challenges, preparing session content, and delivering two back-to-back community sessions, there wasn’t much bandwidth left for personal learning. The AD course took a backseat.
Also, the late-night session timing wasn’t ideal, but the fact that 30 people stuck around made it worth it.
Looking ahead
Next week’s focus:
- Get back to the Active Directory course
- Start publishing Sherlock writeups (beginning with Mongobleed from the HTB Kenya session)
- Possibly draft another blog post (documentation workflow still on the backlog)
- Catch up on rest after a packed week
Community work, CTF delivery, and a reminder that sometimes the schedule gets packed—and that’s okay.