#something awesome

[arcxus-of-altihex]

I figured out how I wanted him to look for sure so here <3

[zombiechara42]

sketchbook thingz ^_^

[something-awesome-official]

HEY WERE NOT DEAD!!

Hey were still working on Something Awesome together and we're making pretty good progress!!! We've got each characters personality figured out and we've made the first draft for the first episode's script!!! We know what were doing i swear

[aninsecureworld]

Final Assessment of Project

The Goal

The purpose of my project as defined in my proposal was:

To learn the skills necessary to reverse engineer and perform malware analysis 

The Plan

To achieve that goal. I developed a plan that centered on studying “Practical Malware Analysis” and completing hands-on labs. Before this project, I didn’t have any experience in malware analysis. 

What was achieved? 

I can proudly say I succeeded in:

Setup and configuration of the virtual laboratory 

Learning 5 chapters of content

Completing labs for each chapter

Blog extensively on the malware analysis I conducted

I had successively completed all the necessary components to achieve a distinction in my original criteria. 

Obstacles

I faced several obstacles while completing my project

1. Proposal error 

For my High Distinction criteria,  I was ambitious and hoped to undertake a mock analysis of a malware of my choice. However,  it seemed as I misunderstood the deadline.

I had thought we had until Week 10 to complete our Something Awesome. Within the 5 weeks. I had put in over 30 hours of work towards my Something Awesome Project. It was not feasible to force the HD mock analysis in. I had to let it go and revise my proposal.

2. Book design 

While the introduction of the book stated that each chapter had about three labs. Once I begin completing exercises. It didn’t seem to be the case.

Chapter 2 involved the major setup of the virtual environment

Chapter 5 contained a lab that contained 21 questions!

I had to adjust my approach to the book design.

3. Age of the book

The book is old. Even thought it’s still the most commonly recommended book to malware analysis. It shows it’s age at places. I had to research for new software, installation methods and assumed knowledge. While I scattered some of that research into my lab blogs. I also had separate blogs for dedicated research on important topics.

Final Verdict

I couldn’t be more pleased with my project. It was many hours of work but I felt I I had learnt so much. I will continue this book even after the course is over. Furthermore, I’ll be presenting my Something Awesome Project to my class next week! 

[kxy-6441]

Something Awesome CTF Week 3 Update

CTF requires more skills and efforts than I thought. My lack of knowledge in this field has certainly affected my progress on the CTF challenges that I’m working. I only managed to capture 5 out of 12 Flags across 3 practices (with hints of course). Terms like SQL injection, XSS, path injection is still new to me and some these methods are required to perform to get the flags. So I have decided to do more readings and research for the upcoming weeks. Once I have enough knowledge on the methods and attacks, I should be able to work through the obstacles I am facing.

[multifactored]

HackThisSite Realistic #6

This challenge is a pain in the ass.

Prompt:

I am shown a sequence of letters, as well as a page where the encryption algorithm is demonstrated.

Investigating the encryption page.

After a few tries of encrypting h, I realized that the algorithm was non-deterministic. I got 

.50.32.22, .11.32.61 , and .61.10.33 . Looking for any patterns, I realized that .11.32.61 and  61.10.33  add up to the same number, 104. The rest also added up to 104. 104 is the code for h. 

I tried encrypting ‘help’, and got .33.31.40.62.53.14.15.9.84.48.21.43.  Adding them up gave me 104, 101, 108, 112. Ascii for ‘help’, each character being three letters.

Encrypting ‘help’ with ‘a’ as the password gave me 

.65.56.80.37.48.113.66.65.74.57.69.83. Adding them up:

201, 198, 205, 209

201 - 104 = 97, ascii for a. Similarly, everything has been encrypted with ‘a’.

Encrypting ‘help’ with ‘aa’ as the password gave me:

.88.83.127.71.77.147.88.114.100.129.104.73

298, 295...

At this point, I realized that it was just three letters adding up to give [ascii] + p[1] + [2] + .. + p[n].This can be brute forced.

The first three numbers of the sequence are 845, 859, 871. Looking at 845, it ranges from possibly being ‘a’ with a six letter password or less. However, the letter order ranges from 65 to 122 (A to z), which would be a large difference. I decided to try something - the letter was addressed to a Chief Ecological Inspector Samuel Smith.

The letters didn’t correspond to a ‘Chief’, but the difference between ‘S’ and ‘a’ in Samuel is 14. Coincidentally, it is also 14 in the combination between 845 and 859. Guessing the password adds up to 762, I started decoding the rest. 

Samuel Smith

Thank you for looking the other way on the increased levels of toxic chemicals in the river running alongside our industrial facilities. You can pick up your payment of $20,000 in the mailbox at the mansion on the corner of 53 and St. Charles tomorrow between the hours of 3:00am and 5:00am.

Thank you,

John Sculley ToxiCo Industrial Chemicals

Bad encryption. Also, the page you’re supposed to send the answer is filled with the flag. Challenge successful.

[offbrandbarista]

[lissachan504]

BORED! 

Writing prompt me!