Tag Archives: Term 3

Networking and Operating Systems

CyberStart America Resources: Cryptography Links – Spring 2023

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: January 13th, 2023

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 of up to 3 people!
  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 9th, 2023
Teacher Pacing Due Date: January 27th, 2023

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

Networking and Operating Systems

CYBER.ORG – 1.2.11 – Password Attacks & 4.17 – Password Cracking Tools; Brute Force – Offline Lab

Objectives:

Given a scenario, analyze potential indicators to
determine the type of attack.

Given a scenario, use the appropriate tool to assess
organizational security

Resources:

  • See PowerPoint presentations: 1.2.11 Password Attacks.pptx, 4.1.7 Password Cracking Tools, Lab – Brute Force – Offline

Assignment:

  1. Begin reading the 1.2.11 Password Attacks.pptx presentation. This lesson will introduce you to different types of password attacks.
  2. Next, read the 4.1.7 Password Cracking Tools presentation. This lesson will introduce you to readily accessible tools used to crack passwords.
  3. Next, begin the Lab – Brute Force – Offline.pptx lab.
  4. Use what you learned in today’s lab to crack the hashes downloaded from github, and post a screenshot of the cracked hashes to today’s Assignment Post in our Google Classroom.
  5. Please do your best to complete this Case Study by the end of the day on Tuesday, October 26th. We will start a new lab featuring additional password cracking techniques on Thursday.

Assigned: October 26th, 2021
Teacher Pacing Due Date: October 28th, 2021

Networking and Operating Systems

CYBER.ORG – 2.2.1L – Wireshark Lab

Objective: Given a scenario, students will use appropriate software tools to assess the security posture of an organization.

Resources:

  • See PowerPoint presentation: Lab – Wireshark.pptx

Assignment:

  1. Begin reading the Lab – Wireshark.pptx presentation.
  2. This lab focuses on the use of the Wireshark application to intercept and analyze network packets.
  3. Use the Kali Linux virtual console at https://uscyberrange.org/ to complete the steps provided in the lab presentation.

Assigned: February 24th, 2021

Teacher Pacing Due Date: February 25th, 2021

Networking and Operating Systems

CYBER.ORG – 2.2.1 – Software Security Tools

Objective: Given a scenario, students will use appropriate software tools to assess the security posture of an organization.

Resources:

  • See PowerPoint presentation: 2.2.1 – Software Security Tools

Assignment:

  1. Begin reading the 2.2.1 – Software Security Tools presentation. This lesson includes an overview on software tools that are widely used in cybersecurity.
  2. Review last week’s presentations to prepare for the Command Line Security Tools quiz tomorrow.

Assigned: February 22nd, 2021

Teacher Pacing Due Date: February 23rd, 2021

Networking and Operating Systems

CYBER.ORG – 2.2.2L – Command Line Security Tools Lab Work

Objective: Given a scenario, students will use appropriate software tools to assess the security posture of an organization.

Resources:

  • See PowerPoint presentations: Lab – ip-ifconfig.pptx, Lab – TCPDump.pptx, Lab – Traceroute.pptx

Assignment:

  1. Begin reading the Lab – ip-ifconfig.pptx, Lab – TCPDump.pptx, Lab – Traceroute.pptx. These lessons will provide practice with three very useful command line tools used in cybersecurity.
  2. Follow the instructions in each of the Lab presentations.
  3. The TCPDump lab will produce a file that you will need to upload to today’s assignment post in our Google Classroom.
  4. The Traceroute lab will ask questions that you will be required to answer in a form posted in the Google Classroom.
  5. These labs are self paced, but do your best to complete them by the end of the day on Friday, February 19th.

Assigned: February 18th, 2021

Teacher Pacing Due Date: February 19th, 2021

Networking and Operating Systems

CYBER.ORG 2.2.2 – Command Line Security Tools

Objective: Given a scenario, students will use appropriate software tools to assess the security posture of an organization.

Resources:

  • See PowerPoint presentation: 2.2.2 – Command Line Security Tools

Assignment:

  1. Begin reading the 2.2.2 – Command Line Security Tools presentation. This lesson includes a sampling of the most basic command line tools used in cybersecurity. This is not an exhaustive list, only a starting point.
  2. Download the Linux Commands Cheat Sheet.pdf file to use as a quick resource for the useful Linux commands and tools that we have studied thus far.

Assigned: February 16th, 2021
Teacher Pacing Due Date: February 17th, 2021