Category: Events

DEFCON 22 Wrap-Up: Bonus Round Prize is Still Up for Grabs

DEFCON-poster-draft2Congratulations to all the teams who entered and competed in this year’s Network Forensics Puzzle Contest at DEFCON 22. This was our fifth year running the contest, and we saw an incredible turnout of 264 registered teams for one of our most challenging puzzles ever. It was ultimately a test of endurance: teams were required to beat seven progressively more difficult rounds, with the winning team finishing in just over two days.

The eighth bonus round of the contest was attempted by the top three teams but went unsolved at DEFCON. We will ship the prize (an Amazon Fire TV) to whomever can successfully solve the bonus round first! We have a small confession: no one has solved this round yet (including the creators of the puzzle), so we will be impressed to see a solution.

The top 3 finishers:

1st place: Dofir (49 hours, 3 minutes)

2nd place (tie): Tom Pohl and Team Blue (52 hours, 7 minutes)

We hope you grabbed a disc even if you didn’t have time to play along at DEFCON so now you can check out the puzzle on your own. As promised, here are the passwords to unlock the Truecrypt volumes for each round. Please note that zeroes are often used instead of the letter ‘o.’

Round 1: izDEFCONf33ling22?#tSwift

Round 2: #pshth@twaSteh3@$y1#

Round 3: Ib3tuth0ughtQat@r&&

Round 4: h0wd1dug3tth@t1?%

Round 5: ur0nar0lln0w!@

Round 6: gud$luk^^0nth1s1

Round 7: !LA$$t0n3!!

Bonus round: Way-2_1337-4_u!

A walkthrough with solutions and the steps to get there will be posted this week. Statistics regarding the progress of participating teams and the time it took to complete each round will also be posted soon.

We would love to hear your feedback about the Network Forensics Puzzle Contest in the comments here or @LMGSecurity on Twitter using the hashtag #NFPC. Thanks for playing!

Join Us for Black Hat and DEFCON!

Want to tear apart Android cell phone dumps and Blackhole Exploit Kit 2 infection traffic? LMG has been hard at work gearing up for Black Hat and DEFCON. We’ve developed brand new puzzles for you to play with, a shiny new Network Forensics virtual workstation, and lots more. Here’s a quick preview:
Black Hat logo

  • Register for “Network Forensics: Black Hat Release” (4-Day course). Learn the ins and outs of packet analysis, flow record analysis, wireless forensics, intrusion detection and analysis, covert tunneling, malware network behavior– all packed into a dense 4 days with intensive hands-on technical labs.
     
  • Cellular network forensics is here! Don’t miss our cutting edge workshop, “Do-It-Yourself Cellular IDS,” during the Black Hat Briefings.
     
  • LMG is releasing a brand-new Network Forensics Workstation exclusively for students of “Network Forensics: Black Hat Release.” It includes all of the tools you need to solve every case study in the class, plus extra goodies. You can install this customized ISO to a virtual machine, or right on a hard drive.
     
  • We’ve got another AWESOME puzzle contest lined up for DEFCON, which will be publicly released online at the Network Forensics Puzzle Contest web site afterwards. Keep your eyes peeled for all the new packet captures!

See you in Vegas!