Students will begin preparing for competition in the National Cyber League by familiarizing themselves with the competition rules and procedures through training in the NCL Gym.
The NCL Gym is open now. The NCL Gym provides practice challenges to help prepare players for Preseason, Regular Season and Postseason. While practicing in the NCL Gym, access the solutions guide to receive step-by-step instructions to help you understand the more difficult challenges.
The First Game: Preseason Play
The Preseason is a week-long mandatory game. You must participate in the Preseason in order to receive an NCL Scouting Report. The Preseason gameplay starts at 1:00 p.m. ET on April 4th and ends at 9:00 p.m. ET on April 10th.
Today we are going to start working with Wireshark – a powerful packet collection and analysis tool that is free to download and pre-installed in the Kali Linux distribution.
Watch Hansang Bee’s Intro and About the Wireshark Environmentvideo to get a basic idea of how the Wireshark interface works, and a few tips on how you can configure the Wireshark GUI to meet your specific needs and preferences.
We will be using this and other videos to gain a familiarity with the Wireshark environment, and look at the methods and construction of network packets, so we can begin to develop “the eye” for packet formation and transmission anomalies.
Assigned: February 28th, 2018
Teacher Pacing Due Date: March 2nd, 2018
Visit the Linux Journey website and scroll down to the “Networking Nomad” section. Click on the “Troubleshooting” item.
Today we will look at common networking tools that will not only help you diagnose and troubleshoot network issues in Linux, but will also help you identify potential attack vectors and points of ingress on your own (and others’) networks!
We will get into the lab later this week, as many of these commands will not work in Webminal. (With good reason!)
Assigned: February 20th, 2018
Teacher Pacing Due Date: February 23rd, 2018
Visit the Linux Journey website and scroll down to the “Networking Nomad” section. Click on the “Network Config” item.
Network Configuration is how you set up your network. In Windows, much of this is done for you by the OS. Linux will do this for you if you want it to, but if you want to get hands-on with the interfaces and routing options, then there are many tools within the CLI that will let you do so.
Read through the module to discover how to view and manipulate network interfaces, routing tables, DHCP leases, ARP caches and view network settings using the Network Manager tool.
Don’t forget to get signed out for Advisory tomorrow to participate in the AZ Cyber Warfare Range hacking activity with David Hernandez! It’s going to be a 90 minute activity, so you’ll want to get started during Advisory to participate in the whole thing!
Assigned: February 14th, 2018
Teacher Pacing Due Date: February 15th, 2018
Visit the Linux Journey website and scroll down to the “Networking Nomad” section. Click on the “Routing” item.
Routers are the “traffic cops” or “post office” of networks, depending on what metaphor you choose to follow.
Read the information provided on the Linux Journey website to discover how routers work, learn the difference between routers, switches and hubs, and learn about the routing protocols that determine how a packet gets from one host to another in the shortest amount of time.
Assigned: February 12th, 2018
Teacher Pacing Due Date: February 13th, 2018
Visit the Linux Journey website and scroll down to the “Networking Nomad” section. Click on the “Subnetting” item.
Subnetting is one of those things that you do with a calculator in the real world, but you’re not going to be allowed to take a calculator with you if you take a test like the Network+, CySA+ or CCNA exams, so you better learn how to do it on your own.
The “Subnetting” section of the Linux Journey website gives you a quick explanation of what subnetting is, and how it works. It also provides a subnet math cheat method that should get you through most of the problems you’ll encounter. However, if you want a more thorough understanding of how it works (and trust me, you do) visit the Subnetting.net link for further details.
The “How to Subnet” page at Subnetting.net provides a thorough overview of what subnetting is and how it works. If you’re too lazy to read the page (and I know most of you are) you can watch the Subnetting Tutorial video series, and get a full explanation of what subnetting is, how it works, and how to figure out subnets without the need for a calculator.
With the materials provided here, you should be able to achieve a strong foundation in subnetting, which will allow you to handle a good portion of the questions on the CCNA and Network+ certification exams, as well as have a strong understanding of how packets figure out how to travel from one host to another, even when they’re on very different networks.
Assigned: February 1st, 2018
Teacher Pacing Due Date: February 2nd, 2018
Visit the Linux Journey website and scroll down to the “Networking Nomad” section. Click on the “Network Basics” item. This week we will focus on Networking fundamentals.
Read up on the Network Basics and the OSI model. Much of this will be review from our previous experience in the lab, but we will use this week to go into further detail as to how the different parts of the OSI model work together, and how each part of the process functions to allow machines to communicate with each other.
On Thursday, we will get into subnetting, which is a way of dividing networks up into smaller groups by address.
Assigned: January 29th, 2018
Teacher Pacing Due Date: February 2nd, 2018
Students will continue preparing for proficiency in cyber security by completing a tutorial on the VIM Text Editor application within the Linux Command Line Interface.
Visit Webminal.org, and log in using the account that you created last week.
By now you should have completed lessons 1 through 5, and should have a basic understanding of how to navigate, create and manipulate files and directories, and manipulate system processes within the Linux CLI.
This week, we are going to further investigate the manipulation of text files within the Linux CLI by using the first of two very popular text editors built into Linux: VIM
Log into Webminal.org and type “vimtutor” at the command prompt.
Complete the VIM Tutorial. There are seven lessons in the tutorial, and upon completion, you should have a basic understanding of how to create, edit and save files, as well as get additional help in VIM.
You should be able to complete all seven lessons by the end of this week. Pace yourself accordingly.
Assigned: January 22nd, 2018
Teacher Pacing Due Date: January 26th, 2018
Visit Webminal.org, and used the account you created yesterday to log in.
Take a look at the tutorials available in the left column. We will begin with Lesson 1 today and work our way through the tutorials this week and next week learning the basics of the Linux command line interface.
Assigned: January 11th, 2018
Teacher Pacing Due Date: January 19th, 2018
