Target Cyber Defense Challenge
Introduction
- University of Texas at Austin
- Computer Science, 2025
- Digital forensics and incident response
- Interned at CrowdStrike
Background
- Assembly (learned ARM, but did go through some x86 on my own)
- Prior CTF experience
- Coding
- Basic tools such as Wireshark
- Programming, data structures, computer architecture, operating systems
Tier 1
- Cryptography / Steganography
- Reverse engineering
- USB forensics
- Cyber threat intelligence
Cryptography
- Beware the Ides of March
- Now You See Me, Now You Don’t
- A Snowy Disposition (challenging)
- Figuring out which spaces counted (only counted spaces at the end at first)
- Follow the Dotted Line
- A Particular Exchange
What I learned
- Recognizing ciphers / type of steg
- Tools
- Cyberchef
- stegsolve (aperisolve/stegonline)
- stegsnow
Reverse engineering
- A5M (challenging)
- r04c4 (challenging)
- Sc0rf1g (challenging) (HARDEST)
- Yarrr (challenging)
- Didn’t think I had the flag
- Web2ut3
Bonus
  
What I learned
- x86
- Using decompilers
USB forensics
- Find the Blue Yeti
- Know your Filters!
- Moving Files
- I think this Mouse is Plotting on us?
- Keypress…? Keypressing…? Keep pressing on!
What I learned
- Wireshark
- Scripting
Cyber threat intelligence
- WHOIS responsible for this IP address?
- Don’t sweat the MITRE technique
- ISOlate the domain
- The writers are on Cobalt Strike and this is the best pun I could come up with
- Can I copy your ransomware? Yeah just don’t do it opcode for opcode.
What I learned
- VirusTotal
- Yara
- Learning how to read / doing research
- CLOP
- MOVEit
Tier 2
- Ransomware aftermath
- Checkpoint 1: “Air-gapped”
- Checkpoint 2: The last easy one for a while
- Checkpoint 3: Infinite monkey theorem
- Checkpoint 4: Call for backup
- Checkpoint 5: Raise the flag.txt (challenging)
- Padding
- Checkpoint 6: Are we there yet?
- Checkpoint 7: El plan
What I learned
- Cyberchef for simple tasks
- Scripting for complex tasks
Future
- IoT Forensics Research
- Malware analysis
- Cryptography
- CTF chall inspo
What I liked
- Story – very applicable
- Tooling
- Collaborative
- Perfect amount of difficulty
- Beginner friendly
- FUN!!!
Thoughts
- Workshops before event?
- Keep it collaborative