FLARE-on Challenges approximately seven hours in

I don't know how much I can say about the content of the FLARE-on challenges, and I wouldn't want to post spoilers anyway. Currently, I'm about seven hours of effort in and some of that was spent resurrecting an old virtual machine.

Five of the seven challenges down, I absolutely recommend these for anyone wanting to work their reversing chops. In presenting the challenge, Mike had claimed that you would see a whole gambit of reversing targets. He was not joking.

If you take on the challenge you might see malicious PDFs, .NET binaries, obfuscated PHP, Javascript, x86, x64, PE, ELF, Mach-O, and so on.
-Mike Sikorski-

I've so far been stumbled up by trying to work on x64s in a 32 bit VM, having the wrong version of .NET running in an internet-disconnected box, and needing to get an XP VM with the exactly right version of 3rd party exploitable software to capture a running exploit.

Good times! Let me end with this awesome screenshot from winning Challenge 5.