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5910	12690	Welcome to Space Security Challenge 2020, HackASAT, the final event. As the democratization
12690	18150	of space opens up a new frontier for exploration and innovation, we see new cybersecurity
18150	24790	vulnerabilities emerging. The Space Security Challenge is designed to inspire the world's
24790	30490	top cybersecurity talent to develop the skills necessary to secure this last frontier of
30490	38030	cybersecurity, space. And already we've made a ton of progress. I'll catch you up. This
38030	42850	spring, we hosted over 2,000 teams who worked their way through a set of foundational space
42850	48750	cybersecurity challenges in our HackASAT qualification round. Now, eight finalist
48750	54500	teams are stepping up to the ultimate challenge. They are hacking a satellite.
61120	66660	Welcome to the first of two daily recaps for the Space Security Challenge 2020, or HackASAT.
66660	73360	I'm still your host, Jordan Wines. As our eight teams have been vying for a share of a $100,000
73360	78520	prize pool, we're going to check in and summarize the status of the day. Of course, they also
78520	85300	received $15,000 just to get here as a finalist. The competition for that was fierce. Our finalists
85300	91400	beat out over 2,000 other teams made up of over 6,000 other competitors. Of course, the biggest
91400	96360	prize of all might not even be the money or even the friends we made along the way, but the bragging
96360	100480	rights for your code to be selected to take an actual photograph of the moon from a satellite
100480	106200	in space. While this event was originally planned to be in person during DEF CON in the aerospace
106200	111720	village, the global pandemic has caused us to reimagine the event experience. The result is an
111720	115900	immersive 3D environment where you can stay up to date with the competition while learning all about
115900	120580	space security and the event itself. You can connect with other spectators and even play games
120580	125400	and add to our graffiti wall. So if you aren't already watching this from our immersive 3D
125400	132400	environment, check it out at virtual.hackasat.com. As prior DEF CON attendees, some of you are very
132400	137740	familiar with the many flavors of contests that test your hacking skills. But for others, we
137740	142800	realize this is a whole new world. There are many types of hacking contests and Hackasat falls
142800	151800	into the category of capture the flag or CTF. Remember the game you played as a kid with flags
151800	157540	hidden in opponent's terrain? Now imagine the field or code and the flags are secret data.
157540	162080	Players exploit security flaws to capture the flags while at the same time defending their
162080	168040	networks from opposing teams. These capture the flag CTF events are as diverse as the teams that
168040	173900	play them. This is a global competitive community with thousands of players and global rankings.
173900	179660	It's been a part of the origin story for a great many prominent security experts. So what do these
179660	185360	hacking games look like? CTFs can be either in person or online and usually take place over a
185360	190440	weekend or other short period. They often have a qualification round that determines who gets to
190440	195640	participate in the finals. CTFs are sometimes themed around a specific domain like space for
196220	201100	but more commonly they are not specialized and include a wide variety of different types of
201100	208440	challenges. The most common types of CTFs include Jeopardy CTFs, sometimes called red team CTFs,
208440	213140	are named for their use of the classic game board as a scoreboard. These are more offensive focused.
213140	218120	Each team is given infrastructure to attack and the number of successful attacks, the difficulty,
218120	223480	or the speed at which they succeed is factored into their score. Attack defense, A slash D,
223480	228340	full spectrum CTFs, which are closer to the original game you might have played as a kid.
228340	233600	Each team has a server or set of servers to defend and must attack other teams while also protecting
233600	239140	their own infrastructure. Key of the Hill style CTFs are full spectrum CTFs in which teams score
239140	244780	points by gaining and maintaining control of individual systems. And finally, the less common
244780	250540	blue team exercises, which are primarily defensive events. Game organizers host an environment and
250540	254800	often a professional team of attackers to test the participants defensive skills.
254800	258880	These are more common in the high school and collegiate level. How do you win?
258940	263920	Even though the goal of the CTFs are to find and exploit vulnerabilities in computer systems,
263920	268820	fair play is essential. There are lots of ways to win, but to get the respect of your peers,
268820	273680	you need to have good technical solutions. Nobody is impressed if you use a network flood to knock
273680	278020	the scoreboard offline and those kinds of shenanigans will get you shunned quickly.
278020	283080	The best CTF players have built specialized tools, practice within their domains and include
283080	290720	domain experts in many aspects of security. Why CTF? At their core, CTF challenges are a way for
290720	295120	hackers to build community and demonstrate and hone their skills with other equally skilled
295120	299360	people. Competitions are also a chance to experience the joy of learning about a new
299360	304340	programming language or a new piece of technology hackers haven't used before. Capture the Flag
304340	308680	challenges have also been used to help train cybersecurity teams and to get new hackers
308680	314440	interested in security research. Some companies even use competitions similar to CTFs to recruit
314440	319840	and vet potential candidates for employment. And CTFs have had real-world impact with competitors
319840	324940	finding actual security flaws in contest infrastructure. Their solutions, while not
324940	329760	counting towards winning the game, are often implemented in a real-world context. With
329760	334880	HackASAT, we have a CTF game designed to raise awareness about cybersecurity issues in space
334880	339700	and help researchers develop specific skills and domain knowledge they'll need to help secure this
339700	344800	new frontier. But as many of the players during our quals round found out, there are a lot of
344800	349840	problems unique to the environments outside our atmosphere. To learn more about hacking in space,
349840	355260	check out our Space Talk videos that explain some of the most interesting space-specific challenges.
356460	361460	For more on CTFs and other hacking and space-related topics, go to the research room in the virtual
361460	367380	environment or check out the related YouTube playlist. Okay, let's go ahead and recap the whole
367380	378890	day so far. The game has actually been underway for one hour now, and our team's first challenge
378890	383550	has been to regain control of the ground station that they'll be using to communicate with their
383550	389490	Flatsats. In fact, just before this broadcast went live, we received word that this challenge
389490	395630	was actually solved by Team Samurai. Congratulations to them! Right after our last update ended with
395630	400310	only a Samurai solve, several other teams came in with solutions for Challenge Zero.
400510	407150	PFS and Solarwine were solvers 2 and 3 on that challenge. After those two teams scored on
407150	411230	Challenge Zero, every other team was eventually able to solve Challenge Zero over the next several
411230	416910	hours. Taking a look at the scoreboard so far, we've had an eventful last hour. Our teams continue
416910	421690	to make progress, with four teams now having solved Challenge One. Unfortunately, the window
421690	426550	of time after first solve has expired, and the remaining four teams were given a solution with
426550	434650	no points. PFS and Colon Can Into Space were joined by 1553 and 1064 Seabred with solutions for
434650	440610	Challenge One. Now, this was going to be where I signed off with this update, but as we were live,
440610	445470	PFS actually jumped up on the scoreboard yet again, solving Challenge Two.
451310	455630	You may have noticed that first blood overlay and sound effect in that summary. While it was
455630	459790	originally used in Unreal Tournament to indicate a kill, the phrase and even sometimes the sound
459790	464710	effects are often used in CTF competitions to indicate the first team to solve a particular
464710	472390	challenge. The challenges that teams have solved so far include a Challenge Zero, which required
472390	477110	exploiting an insecure web application to steal credentials for the ground station controller,
477110	480610	and then using that Cosmos ground station, the teams had to restore communication
480610	484530	with their flatsats as they were tumbling and not communicating well.
484830	491490	The Challenge One involved connecting to the ground station, turning up the power,
491490	495490	turning down the bandwidth, which is very much a real-world troubleshooting step.
495630	500010	Next, the teams have to restore proper orientation control over their flatsat,
500010	505430	but only one team so far has managed to accomplish this feat. That brings us to what's happened in
505430	510650	the last two hours of the competition. Most teams are now working on two or three challenges,
510650	514210	the On-Orbit Challenge, Challenge Two, and Challenge Three.
516590	521450	PFS has been pulling away to a healthy lead that is going to be hard to catch up to tomorrow.
521510	527050	Hard, but definitely not impossible. All it takes is for them to get stuck in a problem and be passed
527050	532930	in turn, much like they did to Samurai at the start of the game. It's also interesting to note
532930	538790	that PFS, which is actually short for Pwn First Search and Pull in Can Into Space, are number one
538790	544050	and number two on the leaderboard, are two of the smallest teams in the competition. Having a large
544050	548690	team is sometimes an advantage, but it definitely comes with logistical issues, and in this case,
548690	554810	where the challenges are serial in nature, it isn't always helpful. Let's take a look again
554810	588890	at the PFS team bio. If you were here with us live, you might remember that right in the middle
588890	593510	of teams working on their challenges at around 12 p.m pacific, all teams had to stop what they
593510	601690	were doing and shift focus to the on-orbit challenge. Stop everything and look up. Starting
601690	607670	now, teams shift to the on-orbit challenge. Their primary goal is to capture a picture of the moon
607670	613150	using the satellite. Competitors will have access to the two-line element of the vehicle
613150	618410	and the camera's foresight vector. Each team is tasked with creating a mission plan that
618410	623370	transitions a satellite from a tumbling state to one where it points the camera at the moon.
624170	629430	The team will reach a successful status once their resulting mission plan meets key criteria.
629870	635050	1. The commands are generated in the correct order and are within the specified period.
635350	639870	2. The image capture angle of the moon is within specifications.
640310	645710	3. The team's negative z-axis is pointed as close to the earth's center as possible
645710	648810	without affecting the camera-to-moon pointing error.
649210	653250	4. The teams are given a command dictionary with the format for submitting the commands
653250	663250	and parameters. The rest is up to them. Of course, while PFS is currently in the lead,
663250	668110	they still have a critical problem to solve, specifically the on-orbit challenge. While
668110	672190	Poland Cannon to Space is only nipping at their heels at number two on the scoreboard,
672190	676670	they are critically not only the first team with an attempted solution to their on-orbit challenge,
676670	681990	but the first with an accepted solution. That would mean that they would be able to pass PFS
681990	687450	if PFS is not able to actually solve, because again, that is a pass-fail challenge, and it
687450	691290	will be critical to see what happens in the last few minutes of gameplay today, as well as tomorrow
691290	696390	in the on-orbit challenge. Now that the day is wrapping up, hopefully some of the organizers
696390	701090	have a little bit more time, so we're going to see if we can bring into video chat Vito Genovese,
701090	705470	who many of you may recognize from his time as a member of LegitBS, the team that organized the
705470	710770	DEFCON CTF for five years prior to the current organizers, The Order of the Overflow. Vito is
710770	715510	also currently with Chromulence, the creators of the flatsats and many of the challenges in Hackasat.
715630	721310	Vito, can you hear me? Are you there? Yes, loud and clear. Good evening. Excellent. Glad we got
721310	725130	you. Thanks for stopping by. I know you guys have been very, very busy kind of manning the systems
725130	732630	and talking to the teams. How's the game going so far? It's been going. We've kind of had some,
732630	739550	the flatsats are small run hardware, which always has issues, but we're super, super thankful the
739550	742910	teams are being patient with us and they're putting up a good fight and making really,
742910	749810	really good progress in the game. Is this pacing what you expected? Speaking of how they're kind
749810	753170	of doing, is this about where you thought they would be or you wanted them to be or how does
753170	758570	this fit with your expectations? It's really hard to set expectations for these games. A lot of it
758570	762770	is, you know, throwing stuff around. We can't even be in the same room doodling on a whiteboard
762770	769410	while we do it. So, you know, the expectations are not necessarily what's been happening,
769410	775270	but we'll survive. It's a difficult game and, you know, we'll see what happens tomorrow.
775610	779330	And it, I mean, it does seem like that if they're made good progress up to here,
779330	782730	they could have been a lot further behind. It would be nice to see them maybe a challenge ahead,
782730	786750	but this is certainly within reach, right? Like there's nothing kind of too crazy about what they
786750	790450	have remaining. This could be doable. And these, we know these are good teams that are capable of
790450	796810	more, it seems like, right? Right, yeah, absolutely. The, you know, challenges zero, challenges one,
796810	801190	they're hard challenges and the teams that took time on them, they still took time on them. They
801190	805970	did make progress and they did get through eventually. It's, you know, admirable work and
805970	811130	it's, you know, it's a difficult time for everybody involved. Now, do you miss actually being in Vegas
811130	815470	and going to DEF CON or you actually kind of prefer being remote? What's your take on that?
815890	821070	Absolutely miss it. You know, my, my favorite restaurant in Vegas, I miss, or my favorite
821070	825650	restaurants plural in Vegas. I miss that. I miss seeing my friends. I miss wearing my, you know,
825650	832270	special DEF CON shoes, which are behind me on the shelf. They're not in frame yet, but you know,
832270	835170	it's, it's better than getting really, really sick, I guess.
835770	840030	Given the alternative. Yeah. We're all kind of doing what, doing what we can and should there.
840030	844590	In fact, even you were originally supposed to be on stream with me and we just thought for,
844590	848850	that we would, we would do this via zoom and we'd be able to work it out that way. So thanks for,
849330	853510	for doing that. Tell me a little bit more about the rationale behind the scoring algorithm
853510	857790	and the game design, this, this decay and the kind of the grace window, what,
857790	861190	what design constraints went into that, that decision?
862010	866250	Okay. So the main design constraint with this is it's a very linear catch the flag game.
867290	871450	So what's, what has to happen is we're trying to get teams to take over this,
871450	875350	regain control of this, you know, tumbling satellite lost in space.
875370	880630	And that is a complicated operation. And instead of just having, you know, one single,
880630	884090	you know, you get this chunk of points, if you win the game, we split it up into different
884090	888670	little gates that teams have to pass through. So, you know, challenge zero or the first gate
888670	893230	is getting control of the, of a machine in the ground station. Challenge one after that
893230	896530	is being able to actually talk and receive messages with the satellite.
896630	901130	So we had to split this up in order to keep, you know, make the game actually have points
901130	906190	before you get to the end. And at the same time, in order to make the points actually meaningful,
906190	909270	we wanted to make sure there was some time pressure for teams to go quickly
909270	914810	and make progress throughout the whole weekend. So we have this kind of decay system implemented.
915070	918450	So each challenge is worth a fixed number of points at the beginning.
918530	922990	And as soon as the team solves it the first time, the clock starts ticking.
923070	927390	So within that first 30 minutes, anybody else who solves that challenge is also going to get
927390	932290	the full points. For challenge zero, that would be 50 points. For challenge two, or for challenge one,
932290	937910	that was 200 points. Beyond that, after that first 30 minutes, we have another two-hour interval
937910	944230	where that point amount starts gradually ticking down towards zero. Once it's hit zero, we don't
944230	948290	award points for it. And at that point, it also means that we share hints to, you know, nudge
948290	952870	teams along to get them to the next phase of the competition. And that's one of the advantages,
952870	956870	I think, is that, you know, a team, if they happen to get stuck on one particular problem,
956870	961490	in a serial event in particular, there's just not much you can do, in fairness to the other teams,
961490	964970	in terms of, you know, kind of, you don't want to give a team a hint just because they're behind,
964970	968590	because that actually hurts them. But by having the score drop off in a point at which they have
968590	972090	to be done or else they're just given a hint, well, then they've lost all the points for it.
972090	976170	And so it keeps them up with the game while not punishing the teams that do well. So that
976170	980930	makes a lot of sense. If you had a favorite challenge, what's the number? And if it's one we
980930	986430	haven't seen yet, like, no spoilers, of course, but what do you like best? So it's honestly, for me,
986430	990870	it's probably challenge one, which is kind of where the game starts to diverge from a normal
990870	994970	capture the flag contest. With challenge zero, we had a web app that teams had to,
994970	998210	I think, determine a cookie secret in. And that's very...
1001810	1006670	Challenge one is where we start to diverge. That's where we have to, once we've gotten
1006670	1012350	into the ground station and are able to talk to the, you know, satellite control system Cosmos,
1012350	1016570	that's where teams have to figure out how to turn telemetry on on the satellite,
1016570	1020570	because it's not, you know, just another machine on the network with an IP address,
1020570	1025910	and where teams have to figure out how to tell the satellite's radio to configure itself in a way
1025910	1030030	that it's actually functional for the rest of the game, for sending messages back and forth.
1030030	1034650	I saw a great quote go over the team communication channel from the organizers that said,
1036090	1040490	these are not like traditional network devices. And if you think sending, you know, two requests
1040610	1044490	a second, you know, will get you more reliability the way you would in a normal network,
1044490	1048870	that may be counterproductive here, which I thought was a great kind of nod towards the,
1048870	1052390	yeah, there's some different constraints and different concerns that maybe, you know, are
1052390	1057650	not the folks first instincts are accurate on, given the environment. So that makes a lot of
1057650	1063750	sense. Yeah, absolutely. It's a satellite is, in some senses, it is, you know, still a computer.
1063930	1068310	But the problem is, is it's a computer that costs millions and millions of dollars to,
1068310	1070790	you know, install and it costs, you know, billions of...
1072570	1076090	No, I think we might've lost you a little bit there for some network. Oh, you're back now.
1076090	1081150	Go ahead. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It costs, you know, millions to, you know, put it in place in the
1081150	1085190	first place. And it costs billions to send somebody up there to push a button to restart it.
1085790	1091150	Beyond that, it's, you know, a computer that you only talk to an RF and it's moving in a way that
1091610	1095570	whatever you can see it, you can probably talk to it, but there's a lot of time from any given
1095570	1100350	ground station where you can't see it at all. And that's a very unique challenge.
1101350	1105850	Vito, thank you very much for both your work on the game and for taking some time to talk to us
1105850	1109650	tonight. Look forward to seeing how the teams do tomorrow and look forward to talking to some more
1109650	1118650	as we see their progress. Excellent. Thanks. Take care. Take care. That's it for this first day of
1118650	1123470	the Space Security Challenge 2020 or HackASET final event. Overnight, we'll be taking our
1123470	1128210	FlatSats offline so they can get a good rest, aka, have their batteries charged, and so the
1128210	1133070	competition organizers can recharge their batteries, aka, have a good night's rest. Of
1133070	1136930	course, in addition to sleep, the teams will need to continue working on some of the components
1136930	1142250	in between game shutdown and game start tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. Pacific and 10 a.m. Eastern.
1142250	1146970	They've actually been given a firmware image that will help them for the upcoming Challenge 3.
1147630	1151790	Thanks for spending your day with us. Make sure to check out the rest of what's happening at
1151790	1156650	DEFCON, the Aerospace Village, and our Aerospace Workshops. And I look forward to seeing you all
1156650	1160850	tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. Pacific, 12 p.m. Eastern for our next game update.