[00:00.000 --> 00:05.940]  ...top cybersecurity talent to develop the skills necessary to secure this last frontier of
[00:05.940 --> 00:14.020]  cybersecurity, space. And already we've made a ton of progress. I'll catch you up. This spring we
[00:14.020 --> 00:18.900]  hosted over 2,000 teams who worked their way through a set of foundational space cybersecurity
[00:18.900 --> 00:25.580]  challenges in our HackASAT qualification round. Now eight finalist teams are stepping up to the
[00:25.580 --> 00:40.710]  ultimate challenge. They are hacking a satellite. Welcome to Space Security Challenge 2020,
[00:40.710 --> 00:45.550]  or HackASAT. I'm your host, Jordan Wines, and I'm very excited to be with you today.
[00:45.550 --> 00:51.310]  I'm here in Melbourne, Florida, at HackASAT HQ, where eight satellites are spinning out of control
[00:51.310 --> 00:59.150]  as the teams do their best to restore functionality, all for a piece of a $100,000 prize pool.
[00:59.150 --> 01:04.270]  These teams from 11 different countries around the world include not only some that are very
[01:04.270 --> 01:09.530]  familiar to those of us from the Capture the Flag, or CTF, community, but also include
[01:09.530 --> 01:15.170]  many newcomers who assembled just to answer the call for HackASAT. Let's meet our teams.
[01:56.310 --> 02:02.350]  To get to this final event, individuals on these eight teams had to beat out over 6,000 other
[02:02.350 --> 02:07.350]  competitors for a coveted invitation. This required mastery not only in traditional CTF
[02:07.350 --> 02:12.690]  hacking skills, like reverse engineering and vulnerability research, but also in areas new
[02:12.690 --> 02:19.330]  to the CTF community, including orbital mechanics, astrophysics, space-based communication systems,
[02:19.330 --> 02:25.090]  and many others. Today and tomorrow, each of our eight teams will race the others through
[02:25.250 --> 02:30.790]  a series of challenges to regain control over their Flatsat. If you followed our story at
[02:30.790 --> 02:37.970]  hackasat.com and launch.com.com, you might know that through some bad code and poor business
[02:37.970 --> 02:43.410]  choices, our defunct launch.com company has accidentally triggered a satellite intended
[02:43.410 --> 02:49.890]  for the year 2000 to be launched in 2020 with no one in control. In our fictional storyline,
[02:49.890 --> 02:54.410]  this satellite has been co-opted by nefarious forces, and it's up to our competitors to regain
[02:54.410 --> 03:00.730]  control over the many components. Since qualifying, each team was shipped a physical Flatsat,
[03:00.730 --> 03:06.050]  and these Flatsats are not only prizes for their qualifying performance, but also allow the teams
[03:06.050 --> 03:11.310]  to become familiar with the hardware and software before this final event. So what's the difference
[03:11.310 --> 03:16.870]  between a satellite and a Flatsat? Think of a Flatsat as a bench version for testing components
[03:16.870 --> 03:22.250]  of an actual satellite without necessarily being exactly what you would send into space.
[03:22.250 --> 03:27.610]  The satellites you can watch in our live webcams are Flatsats, but don't worry,
[03:27.610 --> 03:32.830]  not all of the competition this weekend will be terrestrial. The game has actually been underway
[03:32.830 --> 03:38.250]  for one hour now, and our team's first challenge has been to regain control of the ground station
[03:38.250 --> 03:43.410]  that they'll be using to communicate with their Flatsats. Being good hackers, of course, we call
[03:43.410 --> 03:52.090]  this Challenge Zero. Challenge Zero. Here's what we know. An adversary has obtained access to the
[03:52.090 --> 03:58.390]  satellite's ground station. Once they obtained access, they kicked us out. The challenge? Teams
[03:58.390 --> 04:11.120]  must obtain network access to the ground station. This is called Challenge Zero because it's required
[04:11.120 --> 04:16.820]  for the teams to even kick the game off. While most of our challenges will have teams focusing
[04:16.820 --> 04:22.300]  on components that are inside of their Flatsats, Challenge Zero is all about gaining access to the
[04:22.300 --> 04:27.740]  ground station that they'll be using to communicate with their Flatsat. And again, this is not a
[04:27.740 --> 04:32.960]  simulation. All of these eight Flatsats may be here on Earth, but they're completely untethered,
[04:32.960 --> 04:37.800]  floating on a cushion of air, and each one being connected wirelessly from a separate radio link.
[04:37.800 --> 04:42.900]  In the first hour of gameplay, teams have been getting their bearings and working on solving
[04:42.900 --> 04:48.720]  Challenge Zero. In fact, just before this broadcast went live, we received word that this challenge
[04:48.720 --> 04:55.240]  was actually solved by Team Samurai. Congratulations to them. Let's go ahead and see a little bit more
[04:55.240 --> 05:30.240]  about Team Samurai. Team Samurai is a mainstay in the CTF community. In fact, one of the fun
[05:30.240 --> 05:34.860]  facts about this community is that I've competed against Samurai about as many times as I've
[05:34.860 --> 05:39.220]  actually competed with them. This community is tight-knit, people move around between them,
[05:39.220 --> 05:44.120]  and it's good to see them jump into the lead and take a start on the scoreboard. They're now going
[05:44.120 --> 05:48.180]  to be focusing on Challenge One, which we're going to give you a little bit of a hint on what that
[05:48.180 --> 05:56.120]  entails now. Challenge Number One. Here's what we know. Having access to the ground station means
[05:56.120 --> 06:00.640]  we can attempt communication, but the satellite is spinning out of control, which complicates
[06:00.640 --> 06:05.940]  everything. The challenge. Teams must regain communication with the satellite.
[06:16.240 --> 06:22.460]  While this event was originally planned to be in person during DEF CON in the Aerospace Village,
[06:22.460 --> 06:27.180]  thanks to the tireless efforts of dozens of people involved behind the scenes, we're instead streaming
[06:27.180 --> 06:32.380]  to you live throughout the event. Not only has the game itself been adapted to allow for remote
[06:32.380 --> 06:38.080]  participation from our eight teams over VPN, but the spectator experience has changed as well.
[06:38.080 --> 06:43.500]  There are many different ways you can now experience HackASAT. For a simpler interface,
[06:43.500 --> 06:48.820]  just visit hackasat.com, with a web-based scoreboard, these periodic live updates streamed
[06:48.820 --> 06:54.120]  right and center, and links to other resources. For a more immersive experience, head over to
[06:54.120 --> 06:59.880]  virtual.hackasat.com, where you can get all of the above and more, including watching our satellites
[06:59.880 --> 07:05.660]  live via one of four dedicated webcam feeds, get more technical game data from the 3D octagon
[07:05.660 --> 07:11.240]  scoreboard, as well as many other resources about our competitors, the flatsats, the technologies
[07:11.240 --> 07:15.720]  involved in space, and even communicate with other viewers in a dedicated chat and have a few
[07:15.720 --> 07:20.920]  social interactions. No need to remember all that just now though. All you have to remember is that
[07:20.920 --> 07:27.740]  you can find it all on hackasat.com and virtual.hackasat.com. The HackASAT team is also partnering
[07:27.740 --> 07:31.760]  with the Aerospace Village, one of the many villages you'd normally get to experience in
[07:31.760 --> 07:37.240]  person at DEFCON. After 15 years of attendance, I know I'm not the only one missing many of my
[07:37.240 --> 07:42.120]  friends and our hallway conversations at DEFCON. Hopefully we can recreate a little bit of that
[07:42.120 --> 07:47.700]  experience here. In addition to all that we have going on at HackASAT, make sure you check out the
[07:47.700 --> 07:52.140]  rest of what DEFCON, the Aerospace Village, and our friends over at Defense Digital Service are
[07:52.140 --> 07:57.000]  doing this weekend, and hope to see you back here as we check in on how our teams are doing and hear
[07:57.000 --> 08:02.440]  more about the vision behind HackASAT at our next update at 11 a.m. Pacific, 2 p.m. Eastern.