Are you ready to put your Network Security skills to the test? Win cool prizes while you’re at it? Well, you’ll have a chance to at Penguicon! The Michigan Cyber Range, Powered by Merit, our proud sponsor, is hosting a Network Capture the Flag (CTF) event on Saturday, May 5th in one hour time-slots from 10am-5pm in The PenguiLab (Charlevoix C)! Additionally, attendees will be able to Meet with the creators of the event on Friday to learn about the CTF environment.
There will be both reserved seats and open seats (first come, first served) for attendees in one hour blocks. Space is limited! So please, if you know what time you’ll be available to attend this event please sign up here! You will have a confirmed time in the Merit CTF event before April 22nd.
If you are wondering what Network CTF is, here’s a quick overview:
Computer security represents a challenge to education due to its interdisciplinary nature. Topics in computer security are drawn from areas ranging from theoretical aspects of computer science to applied aspects of information technology management. This makes it difficult to encapsulate the spirit of what constitutes a computer security professional.
One approximation for this measure is the ‘capture the flag’ competition. Attack-oriented CTF competitions try to distill the essence of many aspects of professional computer security work into a single short or long term exercise that is objectively measurable. The focus areas that CTF competitions tend to measure are vulnerability discovery, exploitation, creative thinking, toolkit knowledge, and operational tradecraft.
A modern computer security professional should be an expert in at least one of these areas and ideally in all of them. Success in CTF competitions demands that participants be an expert in at least one and ideally all of these areas.
Wondering what skills it takes to win?
Expected skills:
CTF participants should have basic computer skills, familiarity with the command line, understanding of IP addressing/DNS, familiarity with basic security concepts, problem solving skills, and resourcefulness! Participants will not know all the solutions to problems encountered in the CTF. The solutions will require research outside of the game!
Skills to Excel:
Below is a list of skill and abilities one should have to excel at Capture the Flag
- Linux command line knowledge
- Windows and linux service exploitation
- Port scanning, networking scanning, vulnerability scanning
- SQL injection
- PHP code exploitation
- PII discovery
- Privilege escalation
- Brute force
- Password hash cracking
- Forensics and reverse engineering
NOTE: Participants are shown how to access and interact with the CTF environment. No assistance in how to solve challenges is offered.
If you think you have what it takes to master this challenge in Network Security, sign up here for the Penguicon 2018 CTF event!
