HackAttack: Cybersecurity Escape

<p>Good Morning Cybersecurity Analysts,</p>

<p>The Betabox Information Security Agency has detected a threat from one of our clients; Social Hero. Social Hero&#39;s social media has been hacked and is now poised to spread&nbsp;malware across subscribers to Social Hero&#39;s accounts!</p>

<p>Time is of the essence! You must break through the three layers of encryption to secure the social media account.&nbsp;You will use your skills and training as a Cybersecurity Analyst to crack encrypted codes and solve puzzles. If you can catch the hacker, perhaps we can stop this from happening again!</p>

<p>You have one hour to secure&nbsp;Social Hero&#39;s accounts.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Best of luck, Analysts!&nbsp;</p>

<p>In this step, you will use brute force, a logic puzzle, and clues from social media posts to open the three different locks.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Please be advised that the term Brute Force in Cybersecurity is&nbsp;not physically breaking into something, but it is the act of trying random password combinations until you get the right one. So please respect the boxes and don&#39;t break them! There is a note on solving these boxes and how these techniques relate to real-world cyber security below.</p>

<p>When you get your boxes and your first set of cards, you may begin. Your one-hour timer has started!<br />
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<p dir="ltr" role="presentation"><b id="docs-internal-guid-15daf331-7fff-08d5-a1d0-f1c9db249275">Brute Force is a tactic for cracking passwords by trying multiple combinations until the password is found or &ldquo;cracked.&rdquo;</b></p>

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<p dir="ltr" role="presentation"><b id="docs-internal-guid-15daf331-7fff-08d5-a1d0-f1c9db249275">To combat brute force attacks, many services will lock an account for 30-60 minutes after 3-5 failed logins. However, wifi networks are an example of passwords that rarely have any protection against brute force attacks</b></p>
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<p dir="ltr" role="presentation"><b id="docs-internal-guid-15daf331-7fff-08d5-a1d0-f1c9db249275">The brute force &ldquo;dictionary&rdquo; puzzle represents that brute force attacks can be more efficient by testing common words and phrases. Users who pick &ldquo;password&rdquo; or &ldquo;let me in&rdquo; as a password are exceptionally vulnerable to dictionary cracks as these common passwords are well documented as frequently used passwords, therefore they are common guesses by hackers</b></p>
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<p dir="ltr" role="presentation"><b id="docs-internal-guid-15daf331-7fff-08d5-a1d0-f1c9db249275">Lock 1 can be opened by trying up to 100 combinations, but lock 2 has 1000 possible combinations. This represents how longer passwords increase security due to the increase in possible combinations. Additionally, capital letters and special characters make the range of possible passwords even larger. This is why many sites require capital letters, special characters, and a minimum password length </b></p>
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<p dir="ltr" role="presentation">Once you have opened all three locks, you have completed Layer 1 and will move on to Layer 2!</p>

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<p dir="ltr" role="presentation">Congratulations on completing Layer 1! Don&#39;t stop to pat yourself on the back just yet, Social Hero&#39;s fans will soon be checking in to their social media accounts and we still have two other layers to complete!</p>

<p dir="ltr" role="presentation"><b id="docs-internal-guid-a4cbb775-7fff-e08b-f71c-89e93a66db26">The next clue and box layer is about a message broken into &ldquo;packets&rdquo; that represent how websites and internet traffic are transferred in smaller chunks and assembled upon arrival. That data also may be encrypted, which is why this clue layer is about encryption.</b></p>

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<p dir="ltr" role="presentation"><b id="docs-internal-guid-a4cbb775-7fff-e08b-f71c-89e93a66db26">Caesar Ciphers are an ancient example of encryption and relatively easy to understand. Modern encryption is more advanced than Caesar Ciphers. However, the Enigma Machine, used during World War 2, is a powerful example of how even before internet encryption, mechanical tools helped encrypt data with a key that changed each and every letter! </b></p>
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