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NSA Codebreaker Challenge 2022

Overview

The 2022 Codebreaker Challenge consists of a series of tasks that are worth a varying amount of points based upon their difficulty. Schools will be ranked according to the total number of points accumulated by their students. Solutions may be submitted at any time for the duration of the Challenge.

The initial tasks are divided into two sequences, A and B, which can be solved independently. Later tasks may rely on the results of earlier tasks. While not required, we recommend that you solve tasks in order, since they flow with the storyline, and may in fact be unsolvable without the information recovered from previous tasks.

Each task in this year's challenge will require a range of skills. We need you to call upon all of your technical expertise, your intuition, and your common sense.

Good luck. We hope you enjoy the challenge!

Background

DISCLAIMER - The following is a FICTITIOUS story meant for providing realistic context for the Codebreaker Challenge and is not tied in any way to actual events.


NSA has two main jobs: collecting foreign signals intelligence, and providing cybersecurity for the US government. As part of the latter mission, NSA works with partner agencies to provide technical assistance where our skills can be useful. In this scenario, you play the role of an NSA employee providing technical assistance to the FBI in order to investigate a ransomware incident.


Note: All IP addresses and identifiers have been anonymized. Any resemblance to any real person is purely coincidental.

Challenges

Task Category Points
Task A1 - Initial access Log analysis 10
Task A2 - Identifying the attacker Computer Forensics, Packet Analysis 40
Task B1 - Information Gathering Reverse Engineering, Web Analysis 10
Task B2 - Getting Deeper Web Hacking, [redacted] 100
Task 5 - Core Dumped Reverse Engineering, Cryptography 500
Task 6 - Gaining Access Web Hacking, [redacted] 150
Task 7 - Privilege Escalation Web Hacking, [redacted] 300
Task 8 - Raiding the Vault Reverse Engineering, [redacted] 2000
Task 9 - The End of the Road Cryptanalysis, Software Development 5000