start	end	text
5460	12240	Welcome to Space Security Challenge 2020, HackASAT, the final event. As the democratization
12240	17700	of space opens up a new frontier for exploration and innovation, we see new cybersecurity
17700	24340	vulnerabilities emerging. The Space Security Challenge is designed to inspire the world's
24340	30040	top cybersecurity talent to develop the skills necessary to secure this last frontier of
30040	37560	cybersecurity, space. And already we've made a ton of progress. I'll catch you up. This
37560	42380	spring we hosted over 2,000 teams who worked their way through a set of foundational space
42380	48300	cybersecurity challenges in our HackASAT qualification round. Now, eight finalist
48300	54060	teams are stepping up to the ultimate challenge. They are hacking a satellite.
60640	66220	Welcome to the first of two daily recaps for the Space Security Challenge 2020 or HackASAT.
66220	72900	I'm still your host, Jordan Wines. As our eight teams have been vying for a share of a $100,000
72900	78060	prize pool, we're going to check in and summarize the status of the day. Of course, they also
78060	84840	received $15,000 just to get here as a finalist. The competition for that was fierce. Our finalists
84840	90940	beat out over 2,000 other teams made up of over 6,000 other competitors. Of course, the biggest
90940	95900	prize of all might not even be the money or even the friends we made along the way, but the bragging
95900	100020	rights for your code to be selected to take an actual photograph of the moon from a satellite
100020	105760	in space. While this event was originally planned to be in person during DEF CON in the aerospace
105760	111260	village, the global pandemic has caused us to reimagine the event experience. The result is an
111260	115260	immersive 3D environment where you can stay up to date with the competition while learning all
115260	119760	about space security and the event itself. You can connect with other spectators and even play
119760	124600	games and add to our graffiti wall. So if you aren't already watching this from our immersive
124600	131940	3D environment, check it out at virtual.hackasat.com. As prior DEF CON attendees, some of you are very
131940	137280	familiar with the many flavors of contests that test your hacking skills. But for others, we
137280	142340	realize this is a whole new world. There are many types of hacking contests and Hackasat falls
142340	151350	into the category of Capture the Flag or CTF. Remember the game you played as a kid with flags
151350	157090	hidden in opponent's terrain? Now imagine the field or code and the flags are secret data.
157090	161630	Players exploit security flaws to capture the flags while at the same time defending their
161630	167570	networks from opposing teams. These Capture the Flag CTF events are as diverse as the teams that
167570	173430	play them. This is a global competitive community with thousands of players and global rankings.
173430	179210	It's been a part of the origin story for a great many prominent security experts. So what do these
179210	184310	hacking games look like? CTFs can be either in-person or online and usually take place
184310	189190	over a weekend or other short period. They often have a qualification round that determines who
189190	194070	gets to participate in the finals. CTFs are sometimes themed around a specific domain
194070	199630	like space for Hackasat, but more commonly they are not specialized and include a wide variety
199630	205890	of different types of challenges. The most common types of CTFs include Jeopardy CTFs, sometimes
205890	211270	called Red Team CTFs, are named for their use of the classic game board as a scoreboard. These are
211270	215730	more offensive focused. Each team is given infrastructure to attack and the number of
215730	221010	successful attacks, the difficulty, or the speed at which they succeed is factored into their score.
221010	226770	Attack Defense, A-D, or Full Spectrum CTFs, which are closer to the original game you might have
226770	232210	played as a kid. Each team has a server or set of servers to defend and must attack other teams
232210	237590	while also protecting their own infrastructure. Key of the Hill style CTFs are Full Spectrum CTFs
237590	242650	in which teams score points by gaining and maintaining control of individual systems.
242750	248070	And finally, the less common Blue Team Exercises, which are primarily defensive events. Game
248070	252410	organizers host an environment and often a professional team of attackers to test the
252410	257190	participants defensive skills. These are more common in the high school and collegiate level.
257290	261850	How do you win? Even though the goal of the CTFs are to find and exploit vulnerabilities
261850	267130	in computer systems, fair play is essential. There are lots of ways to win, but to get the
267130	271930	respect of your peers, you need to have good technical solutions. Nobody is impressed if you
271930	276050	use a network flood to knock the scoreboard offline, and those kinds of shenanigans will
276050	280750	get you shunned quickly. The best CTF players have built specialized tools,
280750	285280	practice within their domains, and include domain experts in many aspects of security.
286290	292310	Why CTF? At their core, CTF challenges are a way for hackers to build community and demonstrate
292310	296990	and hone their skills with other equally skilled people. Competitions are also a chance to
296990	301330	experience the joy of learning about a new programming language or a new piece of technology
301330	305890	hackers haven't used before. Capture the Flag challenges have also been used to help train
305890	311010	cybersecurity teams and to get new hackers interested in security research. Some companies
311010	316490	even use competitions similar to CTFs to recruit and vet potential candidates for employment.
316490	321090	And CTFs have had real-world impact, with competitors finding actual security flaws
321090	325870	in contest infrastructure. Their solutions, while not counting towards winning the game,
325870	331810	are often implemented in a real-world context. With HackASAT, we have a CTF game designed to
331810	336470	raise awareness about cybersecurity issues in space and help researchers develop specific
336470	341550	skills and domain knowledge they'll need to help secure this new frontier. But as many of the
341550	345970	players during our Qualls round found out, there are a lot of problems unique to the environments
345970	350830	outside our atmosphere. To learn more about hacking in space, check out our Space Talk videos
350830	357570	that explain some of the most interesting space-specific challenges. For more on CTFs
357570	361470	and other hacking and space-related topics, go to the research room in the virtual environment
361470	367830	or check out the related YouTube playlist. Okay, let's go ahead and recap the whole day so far.
373880	379040	The game has actually been underway for one hour now, and our team's first challenge has been to
379040	384000	regain control of the ground station that they'll be using to communicate with their Flatsats.
384000	389780	In fact, just before this broadcast went live, we received word that this challenge was actually
389780	395940	solved by Team Samurai. Congratulations to them! Right after our last update ended with only a
395940	400480	Samurai solve, several other teams came in with solutions for Challenge Zero.
400480	407220	PFS and Solarwine were solvers 2 and 3 on that challenge. After those two teams scored on
407220	410760	Challenge Zero, every other team was eventually able to solve Challenge Zero over the next several
410760	416460	hours. Taking a look at the scoreboard so far, we've had an eventful last hour. Our teams continue
416460	421240	to make progress, with four teams now having solved Challenge One. Unfortunately, the window
421240	426080	of time after first solve has expired, and the remaining four teams were given a solution with
426080	433960	no points. PFS and Colon Can Into Space were joined by 1553 and 1064 Seabred with solutions
433960	440120	for Challenge One. Now, this was going to be where I signed off with this update, but as we were live,
440120	445080	PFS actually jumped up on the scoreboard yet again, solving Challenge Two.
450870	455170	You may have noticed that first blood overlay and sound effect in that summary. While it was
455170	459350	originally used in Unreal Tournament to indicate a kill, the phrase and even sometimes the sound
459350	464270	effects are often used in CTF competitions to indicate the first team to solve a particular
464270	470590	challenge. The challenges that teams have solved so far include a
470590	475190	which required exploiting an insecure web application to steal credentials for the
475190	479530	ground station controller, and then using that Cosmos ground station, the teams had to restore
479530	484110	communication with their flatsets as they were tumbling and not communicating well.
484270	491030	The Challenge One involved connecting to the ground station, turning up the power,
491030	495070	turning down the bandwidth, which is very much a real-world troubleshooting step.
495190	499590	Next, the teams have to restore proper orientation control over their flatset,
499590	503310	but only one team so far has managed to accomplish this feat.
503330	507110	That brings us to what's happened in the last two hours of the competition.
507270	511670	Most teams are now working on two or three challenges. The on-orbit challenge,
511670	513770	Challenge Two, and Challenge Three.
516030	521030	PFS has been pulling away to a healthy lead that is going to be hard to catch up to tomorrow.
521050	526590	Hard, but definitely not impossible. All it takes is for them to get stuck in a problem and be passed
526590	530250	in turn, much like they did to Samurai at the start of the game.
531190	535770	It's also interesting to note that PFS, which is actually short for Pwn First Search,
535770	540050	and Pulling Can Into Space, are number one and number two on the leaderboard,
540050	545490	are two of the smallest teams in the competition. Having a large team is sometimes an advantage,
545490	549330	but it definitely comes with logistical issues, and in this case, where the challenges are serial
549330	555970	in nature, it isn't always helpful. Let's take a look again at the PFS team bio.
584920	589440	If you were here with us live, you might remember that right in the middle of teams working on their
589440	594240	challenges at around 12 p.m. Pacific, all teams had to stop what they were doing and shift focus
594240	603380	to the on-orbit challenge. Stop everything and look up. Starting now, teams shift to the on-orbit
603380	608820	challenge. Their primary goal is to capture a picture of the moon using this satellite.
609460	613840	Competitors will have access to the two-line element of the vehicle and the camera's
613840	619020	foresight vector. Each team is tasked with creating a mission plan that transitions a
619020	624060	satellite from a tumbling state to one where it points the camera at the moon.
624060	629680	The team will reach a successful status once their resulting mission plan meets key criteria.
629680	634580	One, the commands are generated in the correct order and are within the specified period.
634580	641840	Two, the image capture angle of the moon is within specifications. Three, the team's negative
641840	647100	z-axis is pointed as close to the earth's center as possible without affecting the camera to moon
647100	652420	pointing error. The teams are given a command dictionary with the format for submitting the
652420	662780	commands and parameters. The rest is up to them. Of course, while PFS is currently in the lead,
662780	667680	they still have a critical problem to solve. Specifically, the on-orbit challenge. While
667680	671680	Pullin' Cannon to Space is only nipping at their heels at number two on the scoreboard,
671680	676380	they are critically not only the first team with an attempted solution to their on-orbit challenge,
676380	681540	but the first with an accepted solution. That would mean that they would be able to pass PFS
681540	687120	if PFS is not able to actually solve because, again, that is a pass-fail challenge and it will
687120	690840	be critical to see what happens in the last few minutes of gameplay today as well as tomorrow
690840	695920	in the on-orbit challenge. Now that the day is wrapping up, hopefully some of the organizers
695920	700740	have a little bit more time, so we're going to see if we can bring into video chat Vito Genovese,
700740	704840	who many of you may recognize from his time as a member of LegitBS, the team that organized
704840	709640	the DEF CON CTF for five years prior to the current organizers, The Order of the Overflow.
709760	713620	Vito is also currently with Chromulence, the creators of the flatsats and many of the challenges
713620	720140	in HackASAP. Vito, can you hear me? Are you there? Yes, loud and clear. Good evening. Excellent.
720140	723460	Glad we got you. Thanks for stopping by. I know you guys have been very, very busy
723460	728300	kind of manning the systems and talking to the teams. How's the game going so far?
729000	734040	It's been going. We've kind of had some, you know, rough times today. The flatsats are,
734040	739280	you know, small run hardware, which always has issues, but we're super, super thankful the teams
739280	742740	are being patient with us and they're putting up a good fight and making really, really good
742740	748220	progress in the game. Is this pacing what you expected? Sorry, is this pacing what you expected
748220	751660	speaking of like how they're kind of doing? Is this about where you thought they would be or you
751660	756840	wanted them to be or how does this fit with your expectations? It's really hard to set expectations
756840	761000	for these games. A lot of it is, you know, throwing stuff around. We can't even be in the
761000	768040	same room doodling on a whiteboard while we do it. So, you know, the expectations are not necessarily
768040	773900	what's been happening, but we'll survive. It's a difficult game and, you know, we'll see what
773900	778860	happens tomorrow. And I mean, it does seem like that if they're made good progress up to here,
778860	782300	they could have been a lot further behind. It would be nice to see them maybe a challenge ahead,
782300	786280	but this is certainly within reach, right? Like there's nothing kind of too crazy about what they
786280	790300	have remaining. This could be doable and we know these are good teams that are capable of more,
790300	796400	it seems like, right? Right, yeah, absolutely. The, you know, challenges zero, challenges one,
796400	800720	they're hard challenges and the teams that took time on them, they still took time on them. They
800720	805260	did make progress and they did get through eventually. It's, you know, admirable work
805260	809880	and it's, you know, it's a difficult time for everybody involved. Now, do you miss actually
809880	813640	being in Vegas and going to DEF CON or you actually kind of prefer being remote? What's
813640	819820	your take on that? Oh, I absolutely miss it. You know, my favorite restaurant in Vegas,
819820	823960	I miss, or my favorite restaurants, plural in Vegas, I miss that. I miss seeing my friends.
823960	828460	I miss wearing my, you know, special DEF CON shoes, which are behind me on the shelf there,
828460	834660	not in frame yet, but, you know, it's better than getting really, really sick, I guess.
835320	839940	Given the alternative, yeah, we're all kind of doing what we can and should there. In fact,
839940	844280	even you were originally supposed to be on stream with me and we just thought for safety reasons
844280	850180	that we would do this via Zoom and we'd be able to work it out that way. So thanks for doing that.
850180	854420	Tell me a little bit more about the rationale behind the scoring algorithm and the game design,
854420	860740	this decay and the kind of the grace window. What design constraints went into that decision?
861500	865840	Okay, so the main design constraint with this is it's a very linear catch-the-flag game.
866800	872400	So what has to happen is we're trying to get teams to take over this or regain control of this,
872400	878080	you know, tumbling satellite lost in space. And that is a complicated operation. And instead of
878080	882400	just having, you know, one single, you know, you get this chunk of points if you win the game,
882400	886540	we split it up into different little gates that teams have to pass through. So, you know,
886540	891520	challenge zero or the first gate is getting control of a machine in the ground station.
891680	896060	Challenge one after that is being able to actually talk and receive messages with the satellite.
896200	900960	So we had to split this up in order to keep, you know, make the game actually have points before
900960	905740	you get to the end. And at the same time, in order to make the points actually meaningful,
905740	909620	we wanted to make sure there was some time pressure for teams to go quickly and make
909620	914440	progress throughout the whole weekend. So we have this kind of decay system implemented.
914640	919120	So each challenge is worth a fixed number of points at the beginning. And as soon as the team
919120	924620	solves it the first time, the clock starts ticking. So within that first 30 minutes,
924620	928000	anybody else who solves that challenge is also going to get the full points.
928000	931580	For challenge zero, that would be 50 points. For challenge two or for challenge one,
931580	937460	that was 200 points. Beyond that, after that first 30 minutes, we have another two-hour interval
937460	943780	where that point amount starts gradually ticking down towards zero. Once it's hit zero, we don't
943780	947840	award points for it. And at that point, it also means that we share hints to, you know, nudge
947840	952400	teams along to get them to the next phase of the competition. And that's one of the advantages,
952400	956360	I think, is that, you know, a team, if they happen to get stuck on one particular problem
956360	960940	in a serial event in particular, there's just not much you can do in fairness to the other teams
960940	964120	in terms of, you know, kind of you don't want to give a team a hint just because they're behind
964540	968240	because that actually hurts them. But by having the score drop off at a point which they have to
968240	971900	be done or else they're just given a hint, well, then they've lost all the points for it. And so,
971900	976560	it keeps them up with the game while not punishing the teams that do well. So, that makes a lot of
976560	981180	sense. If you had a favorite challenge, what's the number? And if it's one we haven't seen yet,
981180	986000	like, no spoilers, of course, but what do you like best? So, it's honestly, for me,
986000	990400	it's probably challenge one, which is kind of where the game starts to diverge from a normal
990400	994540	Capture the Flag contest. With Challenge Zero, we had a web app that teams had to,
994540	997760	I think, determine a cookie secret in. And that's very...
1001060	1006560	Challenge one is where we start to diverge. That's where we have to, once we've gotten into
1006560	1011920	the ground station and are able to talk to the, you know, satellite control system, Cosmos,
1011920	1015880	that's where teams have to figure out how to turn telemetry on on the satellite
1015880	1019820	because it's not, you know, just another machine on the network with an IP address.
1019820	1025460	And where teams have to figure out how to tell the satellite's radio to configure itself in a way
1025460	1029560	that it's actually functional for the rest of the game, for sending messages back and forth.
1029560	1034180	I saw a great quote go over the team communication channel from the organizers that said,
1035720	1040020	these are not like traditional network devices. And if you think sending, you know, two requests
1040200	1044740	a second, you know, will get you more reliability the way you would in a normal network, that may
1044740	1048500	be counterproductive here, which I thought was a great kind of nod towards the, yeah,
1048500	1051840	there's some different constraints and different concerns that maybe, you know,
1051840	1057200	are not the folks first instincts are accurate on, given the environment. So that makes a lot of
1057200	1063300	sense. Yeah, absolutely. It's a satellite is in some senses, it is, you know, still a computer.
1063520	1067720	But the problem is, is it's a computer that costs millions and millions of dollars to,
1067720	1070380	you know, install. And it costs, you know, billions of...
1072220	1077560	No, I think we might have lost you a little bit there for some network. Oh,
1077560	1081600	it costs, you know, millions to, you know, put it in place in the first place. And it costs
1081600	1086700	billions to send somebody up there to push a button to restart it. Beyond that, it's, you know,
1086880	1092260	a computer that you only talk to an RF. And it's moving in a way that whenever you can see it,
1092260	1096020	you can probably talk to it. But there's a lot of time from any given ground station where you
1096020	1102860	can't see it at all. And that's a very unique challenge. Vito, thank you very much for both
1102860	1106500	your work on the game and for taking some time to talk to us tonight. Look forward to seeing how
1106500	1113160	teams do tomorrow and look forward to talking to some more as we see their progress. Excellent.
1113160	1119820	Thanks. Take care. Take care. That's it for this first day of the Space Security Challenge 2020
1119820	1124720	or HackASet final event. Overnight, we'll be taking our FlatSats offline so they can get a
1124720	1129760	good rest, aka have their batteries charged, and so the competition organizers can recharge their
1129760	1135000	batteries, aka have a good night's rest. Of course, in addition to sleep, the teams will need to
1135000	1138620	continue working on some of the components in between game shutdown and game start tomorrow
1138620	1144040	morning at 7 a.m. Pacific and 10 a.m. Eastern. They've actually been given a firmware image that
1144040	1149380	will help them for the upcoming Challenge 3. Thanks for spending your day with us. Make sure
1149380	1153960	to check out the rest of what's happening at DEF CON, the Aerospace Village, and our Aerospace
1153960	1158900	Workshops. And I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. Pacific, 12 p.m. Eastern
1158900	1160460	for our next game update.