Security Writeup

Documentation standards for security research and CTF challenges.

Document Types

STATUS.md

Track progress for restartability. Update after:

• •Starting work on a problem
• •Finding key information (offsets, addresses)
• •Failed attempts (document what didn't work!)
• •Completing a phase (recon → analysis → exploit → docs)
• •Session end

Status Icons

• •✅ Solved
• •🔄 In Progress
• •❌ Not Started
• •⏸️ Blocked

REPORT.md

Combine technical writeup with learning explanation.

Required Sections

1. •Overview - Accessible summary
2. •Binary Properties - checksec output as table
3. •Vulnerability - Type, location, root cause
4. •Exploitation - Step-by-step approach
5. •Payload - Structure and key addresses
6. •Flag - The solution
7. •Mitigations - How to prevent

Writing Guidelines

• •Technical enough to reproduce
• •Accessible enough to learn from
• •Include actual addresses and offsets
• •Explain the "why" not just the "what"

Multi-Problem Labs

For CTFs with multiple problems:

lab/
├── STATUS.md           # Overview of ALL problems
├── problem1/
│   ├── STATUS.md       # Detailed for this problem
│   ├── exploit.py
│   └── REPORT.md
└── problem2/
    └── ...

Root STATUS.md tracks overall progress; per-problem STATUS.md tracks details.

Templates

• •templates/REPORT.md - Full technical writeup
• •templates/STATUS.md - Progress tracking