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AFCEA TechNet Indo-Pacific CTF 2023
Nov 17, 2023
AFCEA TechNet Indo-Pacific 2023 concluded, and it was a roaring success! Pacific Technologies and Solutions was proud to sponsor and host the Capture the Flag (CTF) events in our custom built cyber range.
Professionals/Military Event Gallery:
Student Event Gallery and Video Recap:
TechNet one of Hawai’i’s largest technology conferences with thousands of attendees that include a mix of service cyber components, agencies, industry, academia, and the military services. Industry exhibitors across multiple ballrooms at the Hilton Hawaiian Village demonstrated a variety of products and solutions.
Pacific Technologies and Solutions was proud to sponsor and host the Capture the Flag (CTF) events in our custom built cyber range.
Participants raced against time and other teams to identify the attacker’s Command & Control addresses and provide forensic evidence to zero in threat actors in the environment. The Red team was actively operating in the environment to generate indicators of compromise, expand access and attempt to stay undetected. The were given a SIEM and other security tools to identify the Red Team’s C2 IP addresses. Each address was a flag. To capture the flag, they needed to provide forensic evidence that the address belongs to Red Tea. A Blue Team won by capturing the most flags in the time allowed and before other Blue Teams.
These two (Red vs. Blue) Threat Hunting style events were held on November 8, 2023.
Event 1: 0930-1300 Students K-12
Event 2: 1400-1800 Military/Pro/Collegiate
5 high schools, 4 from Oahu and 1 from Maui, spent their Wednesday at the conference learning new skills in cyber and in friendly competition with the other schools. It was a great opportunity to give them insight into realistic, active threats that can exist. These students have bright futures ahead of them! See the recap video of the student event here: https://youtu.be/wpWDm9HMEMA?si=mBlJgtEtu_RJqtNn
Schools:
1st Place: Punahou School
2nd Place: Seabury Hall
3rd Place: Mid-Pacific
4th Place Tie: McKinley High School and Hanalani Schools
In the afternoon was the professional/military event. Many participants work at JBPH-H and were very impressive in their threat hunting. Of the 11 flags, both teams captured 6 within the 3 hour vulnerability window, and so it came down to the tie breaker of who caught those flags the fastest.
This team was:
Jordan Provencher-Olaes: Cyber Crew Lead
Roberto Amezquita: Host Analyst
Brayton Acoba: Host Analyst
Zacc Heaussylva: Network Analyst
Brian Singh: Cyber Analyst
James Mannion: Cyber Analyst
Jesse Hakala: Cyber Analyst
It was a successful event supporting local students and professionals, and we got to showcase our COBRA DEN cyber range and its capabilities.
About the COBRA DEN:
It is a cloud-based cyber range that allows for remote participation and continuous training with defensive
cyber capabilities and offensive operator tools. It is a product proprietary to Pacific Technologies and Solutions and is used by several organizations as an on-demand training platform. Contact us if you would like to learn more.
Thank you to everyone that participated, attended, and supported these events! We couldn’t have done it without you all.
Supporting Young Leaders: McKinley High School's JROTC Cyber Patriot Program took 2nd place at the 2022 AFCEA TechNet Student Capture-the-Flag event (Hosted by Pacific Technologies and Solutions). To celebrate their achievement, we donated $2,000 and a pizza party to their club. Congratulations and mahalo for participating! Go Cyber Tigers! About McKinely Cyber Patriot: The McKinley High School Cyber Defense Team (Cyber Patriot) started back in 2011. Since then McKinley is fortunate to have a JROTC team and a School team giving students a greater opportunity to join. Each team is managed by a Coach, and trained by the mentor(s). Mentors are people from the cyber security field, volunteering their time to teach the basics of Cyber security.
When you think of students playing capture the flag, a first thought is of them running around a field playing tag and trying to grab a physical flag from their opponent’s side. What if we were to tell you that this capture the flag was held online and was training the next generation of cyber security professionals? Well, this is the case for the AFCEA Hawaii Student Capture the Flag (CTF) event that was held from Oct 20th-Nov 3rd 2022 by Pacific Technologies and Solutions. So what did this CTF look like? It was modeled to look like a videogame, so it was fun & engaging for the students. The preliminary round was held in October virtually over 3 days and over 14 schools across Hawai’i participated in online challenges to earn points and battle for a spot at the in-person final round. First, they were all given a set of rules, like don’t hack the other teams or the site. Then they were taught how to VPN to a site where there was a jeopardy-style board with cyber tasks, and all the answers had to be hashed (for example, if the answer was the letter q, then the hash would be: 7694f4a66316e53c8cdd9d9954bd611d The topics included: Trivia Recon Analysis Decoding Exploit OSINT And students were taught how to use advanced toolsets including Kali Linux, Arkime, Metasploit, Cyber Chef, Staghide, Zip2John, and a lot of Googling. The event was hosted on a multipurpose cyber range called the COBRA DEN (Distributed Exercise Network) which is powered by a company called Rangeforce. They build cyber readiness with hands-on skills development and entirely emulated, realistic virtual environments. “This is a gamechanger!” proclaimed user: kkuyami, a teacher at Kalaheo High school on the windward side of Oahu, during the connectivity test. The event communications were held on “Discord” which allowed for messaging, voice & video chats, and screen sharing. There were channels in the server for announcements, general chat, technical assistance, and solutions walkthrough at the end. Preliminary Round In the virtual preliminary round, for 60 hours, these students in their teams (along with a coach/mentor assisting) tried to earn as many points as possible because the top 5 teams (of 5) would move onto the finals, held live at the TechNet Indo Pacific conference at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki. Many of these teams also participate in Cyber Patriot (a national youth cyber education program created in the United States to help direct students toward careers in cybersecurity or another STEM discipline. The program was created by the Air Force Association). Schools registered: Aiea HS Hanalani Schools Kaiser HS Kalaheo HS Kapolei HS Mckinley HS Mid Pacific Molokai HS Nanakuli High & Intermediate Seabury Hall Waialua High & Intermediate Waimea HS JROTC Waipahu HS Washington MS It came close, but the top 5 schools that went onto the final round were: 1. McKinley High School (Oahu-Public) 2. Hanalani School (Oahu-Private) 3. Seabury Hall (Maui-Private) 4. Mid Pacific Institute (Oahu-Private) 5. Nanakuli High School (Oahu-Public)