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Home CyberConverge 2026 The Archive Behind the Chunk
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The Archive Behind the Chunk

The Archive Behind the Chunk

  • Author: Utkarsh

This is a steganography challenge involving image metadata, an encrypted payload, and a custom PNG chunk.

We are given:

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2
CTF1.png
CTF2.png

First, inspect CTF1.png using exiftool:

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exiftool CTF1.png

The metadata contains a Base64-encoded payload and the hint:

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key - thor

Decode the payload and decrypt it using age:

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base64 -d encoded.txt > secret.age
age -d -p secret.age

Using the password thor reveals a link to a Word document.

The document contains several images. Inspecting their metadata reveals the first half of the flag in one image’s Description field.

Next, inspect CTF2.png. Running:

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pngcheck -v CTF2.png

reveals an unusual custom PNG chunk. The hidden data can also be located using:

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strings CTF2.png | grep drive.google.com

This reveals a Google Drive folder containing a video. The video provides the second half of the flag.

Combining both fragments gives:

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CYS{W4k4nd443v3R}

The flag would be:

CYS{W4k4nd443v3R}

Flag

CYS{W4k4nd443v3R}
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