Tag Archives: Spring 2022

Networking and Operating Systems

NETWORKING AND OPERATING SYSTEMS 1H FINAL CHALLENGE – Spring 2022

Objective:

Demonstrate proficiency in Cybersecurity Principles through completion of a final comprehensive assessment.

Resources:

Assignment:

  • The Final Challenge will be an open-form Flag Capture competition held within the Cloud CTF environment within the US Cyber Range website.
  • Log in to the US Cyber Range website and navigate to the Cloud CTF environment. The challenge will open at 1:00pm MST on Monday, May 9th and will continue until 3pm on Thursday, May 12th. Click the Start button to begin the challenge.
  • The Challenge will be open continuously until 3pm on Thursday, May 12th, and can be accessed from any web browser. You may take any opportunity inside and outside of class to complete challenges and earn points up to and until the 3pm close on Thursday.
  • This is an open-resource exam. You may use any resources that you have available to you (including each other!) to solve the challenges.
  • Each challenge has a point total associated with it. Easy challenges are worth lower points, and more difficult challenges are worth more points. Your goal is to achieve a minimum of 625 points before the Challenge closes at 3pm on Thursday, May 12th.
  • The challenges will cover many of the topics that we have covered throughout the class, including Cryptography, Networking, Online Reconnaissance, Linux scripting, and Website hacking.
  • Please bear in mind that 625 points is the minimum score, and as such, will result in a minimal passing grade. The final grades will be issued based on a curve according to the highest score in the class.
  • To sweeten the deal, the highest scoring student at the close of the Challenge will receive the Grand Prize: Lunch ordered in from their choice of restaurants on Friday, May 13th. (The last day for seniors!)
  • This is your opportunity to demonstrate the skills that you have acquired throughout the Networking and Cybersecurity sections of our class, and is a much more accurate demonstration of your skill than any multiple choice test could produce. Use your skills and your time wisely, and do not give up when the challenges become difficult: You have the tools and the talent to succeed. Good luck!

Assigned: May 9th, 2022
Teacher Pacing Due Date: May 12th, 2022

Networking and Operating Systems

National Cyber League Final Game: The Team Game

Objective: 

Students will form a team and use their collective knowledge and training to compete in the NCL Team Game.

Links:

Topics Discussed:

  • Cyber Security
  • National Cyber League
  • NCL Spring Season
  • Team Game

Assignment:

The Final Game: Team Game Play

Real-world cybersecurity work is often done in teams. The NCL Team Game provides a safe and challenging environment for players from the Individual Game to apply their knowledge and skills in a team setting.

The Team Game is where you compete with the other members of your team against all the other teams in NCL, even other teams from your school. Performance in the Team Game is used to calculate your school’s Cyber Power Ranking. You may receive assistance from members of your team but may not receive assistance from anyone else. No flag-sharing with other teams allowed. Each team may have up to 7 Student Players and do not need to be from the same school. Team Game roster sign up must be completed prior to the Team Game setup deadline.

The team game requires players to work together to solve real problems, with real deadlines, under time (and in some cases) technical and resource constraints.

All registered student players are eligible to play in the Team Game; Preseason participation is not required.

You will need to arrange and setup your own teams. As a coach, I have no involvement or ability to set up or configure teams. You can set up your team roster here. Setup must be completed by April 22nd at 9:59 AM Local Time or you will not be able to participate.

  1. Students who are creating a team can do so here: https://cyberskyline.com/events/ncl/register/team.
    After they create the team, they will be given a link to give to players (up to 7) they want on their team.
  2. Students who are joining a team will need to obtain the team joining link from the person who created the team. Once they visit the link and confirm, they will be part of the team. 
  3. Students may form teams of up to 7 players. While students may form their own team and play the game solo, this is highly discouraged, as it will limit your ability to earn points, and will likely result in a poor grade for this final assessment project. Please complete your team setup by April 25th at 8:59 p.m. local time.
  4. The Team Game is a mandatory weekend game. The Team Game starts at 10:00 a.m. local time on Friday, April 22nd and ends at 6:00 p.m. local time on Sunday, April 24th.
  5. As in the Individual Game, you are urged to continue to advance through the challenges over the weekend. Do not forget that you can log into the NCL Stadium from any device with an Internet connection, and you may use the tools in the Kali Linux workstation provided at https://uscyberrange.org to solve the challenges.
  6. It is recommended that you continue with the competition over the weekend and get as far as you can to achieve the best results, especially if you did not participate in the Individual Game. This will be your last opportunity to receive points for participation in the NCL Competition.

Please mark your calendars, and plan and prepare accordingly as this Team Game will represent the final Assessment grade before the Final Exam for this final term.

Assigned: April 11th, 2022
Teacher Pacing Due Date: April 22nd, 2022

Networking and Operating Systems

National Cyber League: The Individual Game

Objective: 

Students will use their accumulated knowledge and training to compete in the NCL Individual Game.

Links:

Topics Discussed:

  • Cyber Security
  • National Cyber League
  • NCL Spring Season
  • Individual Game

Assignment:

The Second Game: The Individual Game
The Individual Game is a mandatory weekend game. You must participate in the Individual Game in order to receive an NCL Scouting Report. The Individual Game gameplay starts at 10:00 a.m. local time on Friday, April 8th and ends at 6:00 p.m. local time on Sunday, April 10th.

  1. Please continue to advance through the challenges over the weekend. Do not forget that you can log into the NCL Stadium from any device with an Internet connection, but you may need tools available on a Windows or Linux workstation to solve some of the challenges.
  2. You have full access to the resources at the US Cyber Range to assist you with the challenges in the NCL competition.
  3. It is recommended that you continue with the competition over the weekend and get as far as you can to achieve the best result in your final Scouting Report. It is confirmed that 25% completion is the minimum where scholarships and other recognition may be awarded, but it is in your best interest to score as high as possible in the allotted time.

Please mark your calendars, and plan and prepare accordingly as the Individual Game will represent a significant portion of your grade for this final term.

Security + Team:

For those who are not competing in the NCL challenges, continue your independent study, working towards the Security + Exam. I will be making arrangements next week for our field trip at the end of the month to take the exam, so study hard. It’s closer than you think!

Assigned: April 7th, 2022
Teacher Pacing Due Date: April 10th, 2022

Networking and Operating Systems

National Cyber League – Spring 2022 Practice Game

Objective: 

Students will use their accumulated knowledge and training to compete in the NCL Practice Game.

Links:

Topics Discussed:

  • Cyber Security
  • National Cyber League
  • NCL Spring Season
  • Preseason

Assignment:

The First Game: Preseason Play
The Practice Game is a week-long pre-season game. You must participate in the Practice Game in order to receive an NCL Scouting Report. The Practice Game starts at 1:00 p.m. ET on Monday, March 28th and ends at 9:00 p.m. ET on Monday, April 4th.

There are lots of preparatory materials available. Also, be sure to read about the Bracketing system, which the Preseason game determines, as well as the Rules of Conduct.

  1. If you complete the Preseason game, continue your training in the Gym to prepare for the Regular Season competition on Friday, April 8th.
  2. If you do not finish the competition during class time, please continue to advance through the challenges over the weekend. Do not forget that you can log into the NCL Stadium from any device with an Internet connection, but you may need tools available on a Windows or Linux workstation to solve some of the challenges. It is recommended that you continue with the competition over the weekend and get as far as you can to achieve the best result in your final Scouting Report.

The Big Game: Regular Season Individual Game
The Individual Game is a three-day mandatory game. You must participate in the Individual Game in order to receive an NCL Scouting Report. The Individual Game starts at 10:00 am MST on Friday, April 8th and ends at 6:00 p.m. MST on Sunday, April 10th.

Please mark your calendars, and plan and prepare accordingly as the Preseason and Individual Game will form the bulk of your grade for this final term.

Security+ Team:

For those who are not competing in the NCL challenges, please continue working on your Independent Study in preparation for the Security+ test. Our goal is to complete the test at the end of April, so time is of the essence!

Assigned: March 28th, 2022
Teacher Pacing Due Date: April 4th, 2022

Networking and Operating Systems

National Cyber League Resources: Cryptography Links – Spring 2022

Objective: 

Students will continue preparing for competition in the National Cyber League by familiarizing themselves with common cryptographic methods so that they can effectively identify and decrypt encrypted messages and data.

Topics Discussed:

  • Cryptography
  • Ciphertext
  • Plaintext

Links:

This list is maintained as a resource for students competing in the National Cyber League competition to assist in identification and solution of the presented Cryptography puzzles. If you find any good online Cryptography resources in your travels, let me know and I will add them to the list!

Cryptii – A very cool and very fast “modular” decryption tool that lets you run a string of text through several encryption/decryption methods of your choice.

Dcode.fr – An outstanding French website that offers automatic decoding for a large variety of encryptions. Features include a powerful cipher identifier (that automatically recognizes more than 200 ciphers), decoding tools for the Caesar cipher, Vigenere cipher, Polybius’ square, and dozens of other encryptions.

The Black Chamber – A great collection of interactive tools that explain and allow you to decrypt a variety of common (and some uncommon) encoding schemes.

Tools for Noobs: Online Decryption Tool – Decrypts a string using various algorithms (e.g. Blowfish, DES, TripleDES, Enigma).

MD5hashing.net Encryption and Decryption – At md5hashing.net you can hash (encrypt) any string into 66 different hash types. As you probably know – decryption of any hash is impossible, but they offer reverse decryption via our database (~1000M records, and counting).

Splitbrain.org Encoding/Decoding Tools – This tool helps you to quickly run some text through various different encoding/decoding functions available in PHP. Great for a lot of different decoding possibilities rapidly

CodeBeautify.org Encryption/Decryption Tool – A nice, clean tool for decrypting codes that you know the key for, or encrypting codes with your own original key.

SQLite Viewer for Chrome – Chrome plugin for viewing SQLite databases in your browser. Allows opening and editing of SQLite databases without requiring admin access to install.

Posted: February 17th, 2022

Networking and Operating Systems

Welcome to the National Cyber League! – Week 1: Gym Training

Objective: 

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.

Links:

Topics Discussed:

  • Cyber Security
  • National Cyber League
  • NCL Spring Season
  • Preseason
  • Regular Season
  • Postseason

Assignment:

  1. The NCL Gym is now open! The NCL Gym provides practice challenges to help prepare players for Preseason, Regular Season and Postseason. We will begin practicing in the NCL Gym when our accounts become available.
  2. While practicing in the NCL Gym, access the solutions guide to receive step-by-step instructions to help you understand the more difficult challenges.
  3. Log into the Gym
  4. Read the FAQ – you need to know the NCL lingo
  5. Mark your calendars with the following important NCL Preseason and Regular season dates:
    1. 1/31 – 5/27: Gym Training
    2. 3/28 – 4/4: Preseason Practice Game
    3. 4/8 – 4/10: Regular Season Individual Game
    4. 4/22 – 4/24: Postseason Team Game

The First Game: Preseason Practice Play
The Preseason Practice is a week-long game that measures individual performance and prepares students for the Regular Season game. Participation in the Preseason is recommended to help new players prepare and returning players refresh for the Individual and Team Games. The Preseason Practice gameplay starts at 10:00 a.m. MST on Monday, March 28th and ends at 6:00 p.m. MST on Monday, April 4th.

There are lots of preparatory materials available. Also, be sure to check out the Player Resources, as well as the Rules of Conduct.

Assigned: Feb 8th, 2022
Teacher Pacing Due Date: March 25th, 2022

Networking and Operating Systems

Welcome to CyberStart America!

Objective: 

Students will begin preparing for competition in the National Cyber League by participating in CyberStart America, an immersive cybersecurity training game for high school students.

Links:

Topics Discussed:

  • Cyber Security
  • CyberStart America

Assignment:

  1. Welcome back! I hope your holidays were happy and restful! We are going to switch gears as we work towards competition in the National Cyber League and/or Security + Certification at the end of the month.
  2. In the interest of providing you with more hands-on experience with cybersecurity concepts, I am pleased to introduce CyberStart America, an immersive cybersecurity training game for high school students, where you will take the role of an agent with the “Cyber Protection Agency” and solve challenging puzzles based on real-world situations that you might face as a cybersecurity professional.
  3. Visit the CyberStart America website and register for a free account using your haydenmagnet.org email address. You will need to access your haydenmagnet.org Gmail, as the website sends several confirmation emails in sequence. Be sure to keep your Gmail open until you receive the third confirmation email that allows you to set a password before you proceed with the challenges.
  4. Start with the Intern Base to get a feel for what it’s like to work in cybersecurity. You may work at your own pace, and even work from home if you choose to do so. Remember that these challenges start easy and get harder as you progress, so don’t skip forward too far!
  5. Are you completely confused by any particular challenge? Consult the Field Manual! Click the “Field Manual” link in the upper left corner of the website to view background info on the concepts presented in the challenges, and even watch walkthrough videos (Chapter 07) if you’re completely stumped.
  6. You may work at your own pace, and use any resources that you have available to you to complete the challenges (even other students!)
  7. Do you want to work together with a partner or squad up with a group? Click on the “Groups” link at the top of the page, and click “Create Group” to get a group code that you can share with your crew to squad up and tackle the challenges as a team!
  8. Make sure you join my “NetOp P6” group so I can track your progress, as well. See me for the Join code if you haven’t joined already.
  9. We will continue working with CyberStart America for the next three weeks. At the end of the three weeks, I will buy lunch for the individual or team with the highest point total. Grind solo and get all the food for yourself, or choose your teammates wisely and have a victory feast with your friends!
  10. Good luck, and have fun with the challenges! Bear in mind that the National Cyber League competition will begin at the end of the month. Those who are not studying for Security + certification will begin practicing in the NCL Gym when our accounts become available.

Assigned: January 4th, 2022
Teacher Pacing Due Date: January 21st, 2022