Walking into a CTF without a strategy is like walking into a penetration test without reconnaissance. A good methodology multiplies your effectiveness.

Core principle: Enumerate before you exploit. Before you try anything, gather information. Understand what you’re working with.

In a Jeopardy-style CTF: Visit the URL and look at the page. Check the page source – sometimes flags are in HTML comments. Look at JavaScript, check cookies and headers, check robots.txt.

Part of the free Intro to Cyber course by Cover6 Solutions.