US Navy Sailors Unlock Challenges at Cyber Competition

The Navy Information Operations Command, Maryland hosted a Cyber Captain’s Cup challenge Nov. 30 to test participant’s skills in forensics, programming, trivia, packet analysis and reverse engineering.

The event was put on by the Cyber Captain’s Cup team, made up with a half-dozen Sailors, who participate in nationally held challenges throughout the year. They organized the contest to provide a recreational break for Sailors and to interest potential recruits for their group.

“A lot of people don’t necessarily know what (these contests) entail. So we’re hoping this homegrown one will let them get a taste for it and show them anyone can do this stuff,” said Cryptologic Technician (Networks) 1st Class Luke Baden, the team’s LPO. “If they decide that this is something they like, we’re always looking for more people to join the team.”

Competitors could bring their own laptops or use loaners, along with any readily available or open source tools they wanted. Since not everyone has the same skill set, the tasks each Sailor could face varied. As an example, for network exploitation there were servers running vulnerable services and hiding “secret” data, while cryptologic challenges featured encryption and encoding and a goal of finding a secret key.

“While the trivia was fun, I had the most fun with the rock-paper-scissors challenge,” said Petty Officer 3rd Class Ramy Melo, referring to the programming challenge that clinched him the lead.

It required connecting to a server that automatically responded with one of the three moves from the childhood dispute resolution game. Melo, who claims to not have a lot of scripting experience, used the programming language Perl to defeat the server 50 consecutive times to earn his points.

“Most of the things I’m good at are packet analysis and reverse engineering, but I spent some time on some challenges like that and it really didn’t work out,” he said. “In challenges like (rock-paper-scissors) you can really get engrossed and not realize how much time you have spent.”

All tasks were accessible from an internal web site, where clues, data and files could be downloaded and answers submitted for points. Melo’s last-minute jump over Simmons was visible on a leaderboard that was projected at the front of the room, rather than the Selectee Leadership Course slides or indoctrination videos that light up the screens on a normal duty day.

Including Melo and Baden, most of participants came from 10 Department, though N3, 60 and 70 had some representation. CTNCS Joel Brown sees the benefits of events like these as a no-brainer.

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Naval Today Staff, December 10, 2012