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Cryptogeddon Newsletter – October 18, 2013

Welcome to the official Cryptogeddon Newsletter!

Here’s what I’ll be covering in this newsletter:

  • Mission Pack 3 Launch Challenge
  • Mini Challenge!
  • Official Launch at Sector 2013
  • Kickstarter Project?
  • Request for Additional Feedback
  • In the News
  • Upcoming appearances

Mission Pack 3 Launch Challenge:

Mission Pack 3 is coming very soon and I’m turning the release into a hacking challenge. On launch, I’m going to release the Mission Pack WITHOUT the solution. The challenge is to be among the first to solve the Mission Pack without a solution. The first 3 people to solve the Mission Pack and email me the final “flag” (you’ll know it when you see it) will be added to a special “First Hackers” section within the final Mission Pack that includes the full solution. You’ll have one week to solve the Mission Pack without the solution, after which I will post the full Mission Pack including the solution and the “First Hackers” section (including up to the first 3 people to solve the Mission Pack by the end of the hacking challenge period).

Mini Challenge:

Want to win a free copy of Mission Pack 3? Want to get an email alert as soon as Mission Pack 3 is released (aka a head start)? I’m launching Cryptogeddon’s first Mini Challenge. Here are the rules and the prizes:

Win a free copy of Mission Pack 3 − 1 winner – Be the first person to tweet “I just solved the first @cryptogeddon Mini Challenge. There are no secrets! #Infosec #ctf” AND send an email to me at toddhdow@gmail.com with a copy of the final solution (you’ll know what to send me when you see it).Get an email alert as soon as Mission Pack 3 is released – unlimited winners –tweet “I just solved the first @cryptogeddon Mini Challenge. There are no secrets! #Infosec #ctf” AND send an email to me at toddhdow@gmail.com with a copy of the final solution (you’ll know it when you see it).

The free copy and the email alerts will go out as soon as Mission Pack 3 is available for sale in the Cryptogeddon.com store. I’ll be sending a “Mission Pack 3 is now available” email to my entire distribution list 4 hours after it is available in the sore. That’ll give any early birds a 4 hour head start.

Official Launch at Sector 2013

Sector (Canada’s Premier IT Security Conference) was the initial catalyst behind the creation of Cryptogeddon. Therefore, it was fitting that I used Sector as the official launch trigger for Cryptogeddon. You can read the official press release here.

Kickstarter Project?

I’m debating on running a Cryptogeddon Kickstarter Project. My working title for the project is “The Ultimate Hacker’s Package” and it’ll include a custom Moleskine notebook with the Cryptogeddon logo embossed on the cover and a hacker cheat sheet on the inside cover, a custom USB drive, a t-shirt, printed copies of Mission Packs and more. Anyone interested? Any other suggestions to include in this “Ultimate Hacker’s Package”? Email me or tweet @cryptogeddon with your thoughts.

In the News:

Nat Torkington from O’Reilly Radar listed Cryptogeddon is his Four short links for 17 October 2013. This resulted in the largest one day traffic spike in Cryptogeddon history. Thanks Nat and the O’Reilly team for the shout out!

Slovakian website linuxos.sk mentioned Cryptogeddon in a News article on October 17. (Gotta love Google Translate for helping me understand what the post said!)

Upcoming Appearances:

TASK.TO: I’ll be speaking at TASK.TO (Toronto Area Security Klatch) on the evening of Wednesday October 30. I’ll be offering a repeat performance of my Sector 2013 session entitled, “CRYPTOGEDDON – Sector 2013 Edition: Online Cyber Security War Game”. In this session, I’ll walk the audience through a made-for-Sector-2013 mission pack. Admission and membership for TASK.TO are free. I encourage you to attend and to say hi if you meet me at this event.

Request for Additional Feedback:

I am grateful for your interest in Cryptogeddon and I welcome any feedback that you might be able to offer. There are 3 ways you can do that:

  1. Submit your feedback on the FAQ page.
  2. 2. Complete a feedback survey.
  3. 3. Email me directly at toddhdow@gmail.com.

Thanks again for your support of Cryptogeddon. Keep an eye out for Mission 3, coming soon!

Todd

Categories
news

Cryptogeddon Newsletter – September 20, 2013

Welcome to the first official Cryptogeddon Newsletter!

Here’s what I’ll be covering in this newsletter:

  • Soft Launch Summary
  • Mission 1 Feedback
  • Request for Additional Feedback
  • Status of Mission Pack 2
  • In the News
  • Upcoming appearances

Soft Launch Summary:

First of all, thanks to everyone that has purchased Mission Pack 1. Your interest in Cryptogeddon is appreciated. I am thankful to you for your interest. I hope you are enjoying Mission Pack 1 and I hope you’ll come back for additional Mission Packs in the future.

It’s been an exciting couple of weeks since I first launched Cryptogeddon. The site officially went live on Wednesday September 11. I turned it on and shared the link with my Twitter and Facebook feeds. Within a few hours, I started to get some traffic and my first official sale occurred on launch day at 3:10pm! I’ve read before that the first sale is the best one, and that is absolutely true!

I didn’t know what to expect when I launched the site, but to have my first sale on day 1 was quite exciting. I’ve had consistent sales and traffic every day since then. This is great news, as it reinforces my motivation to build additional missions as quickly as possible and to make them as good as possible.

My first few sales were from European customers, primarily in Germany. I was initially puzzled by this as I suspected a common link amongst these customers, but I didn’t know what that common link would be. After a bit of research, I discovered that a German blog called heise Security (http://www.heise.de/) made mention of my site in a weekly update (http://www.heise.de/security/meldung/lost-found-Was-von-der-Woche-uebrig-blieb-1955505.html) to their readers. Google Translate was fantastic in helping me understand what the blog post said: “Some solve in their free time crossword, the other hacking challenges. In the latter distribution has Cryptogeddon specialized. So far, one finds there though only a mission pack, but the offer is to be gradually expanded.” Thanks to heise Security for the mention! I really appreciate it!

Mission 1 Feedback:

Thank you to everyone that has submitted feedback pertaining to Mission 1. Based on the feedback, it would appear that the mission was solid. A couple of minor issues were uncovered, which I have now corrected in an updated Mission 1 package. Anyone that purchased Mission 1 should have received an email letting them know where to download the updated Mission Pack.

There were 3 key pieces of feedback that I have incorporated:

  1. Put the “STOP READING – SPOILER ALERT!” on a separate page so that the reader doesn’t accidentally skim the page and spoil any surprises.
  2. Mission 1 told participants to post their questions on the “Mission Pack 1” page. The Mission Pack 1 page doesn’t allow comments, so I have moved this to the FAQ page instead.
  3. The links in the table of contents didn’t work. For now, I’ve removed the hyperlinks. I’ll re-add them in future if I can find a suitable method.

Request for Additional Feedback:

I am grateful for your interest in Cryptogeddon and I welcome any feedback that you might be able to offer. There are 3 ways you can do that:

  1. Submit your feedback on the FAQ page: http://cryptogeddon.com/blogs/news/9120555-faq
  2. Complete a feedback survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/V8NHVYX
  3. Email me directly at toddhdow [at] gmail [dot] com;

If you don’t mind, I would appreciate some feedback via the feedback survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/V8NHVYX

Status of Mission Pack 2:

I am just putting the finishing touches on Mission Pack 2. The official title is “Cryptogeddon Mission Pack 2: Protect SCADA Secrets”. Some of the key tools and concepts in this mission will be the use of Amazon Web Services (ec2), WordPress, steganography and geo-location. Mission Pack 2 will be available on Cryptogeddon.com by Tuesday September 24 at the latest. I expect it’ll be ready for purchase sometime this weekend. Keep checking back!

In the News:

Software Hamilton posted a recent interview that I did with Kevin Browne. In the interview, I talk about infosec, I introduce Cryptogeddon and I talk about some of the challenges that came with building this project.

German blog heise Security mentioned Cryptogeddon in their weekly summary for September 13.

Upcoming Appearances:

I’ll be speaking at a couple of events in the near future:

Both DemoCamp and Sector will be great events. I encourage you to attend and to say hi to me at the events.

Thanks again for your support of Cryptogeddon. Keep an eye out for Mission 2, coming soon!

Todd

 

Categories
news Press Release

Introducing Cryptogeddon

Hi ,

I want to take this opportunity to formally welcome you to the Cryptogeddon mailing list. Thanks for subscribing.

First, I’d like to let you know that Cryptogeddon.com is now live and the first mission pack is available for purchase. And, I’d like to share a recent blog post that I wrote introducing Cryptogeddon. The piece is available to read at toddhdow.com and on softwarehamilton.com.

And, I have a couple of pieces of exciting news to share with you:

Introducing “Cryptogeddon Mission Pack 1: Detect the Mole”:

SpaceWay Aeronautics believes they have been hacked. They suspect that foreign competitors have access to the blueprints for their next generation space vehicle.

You need to verify their suspicions by finding the files, the method of transmission and the employee(s) responsible for doing this. SpaceWay suspects that one of their servers was compromised due to suspicious activity. They have provided an image of the server for you to analyze.

Your assignment is the analyze the machine and confirm SpaceWay’s suspicions. Assuming you find evidence of compromise, you are to identify the files that have been transmitted, identify the person(s) responsible for this breach and identify the destination of the files.

  • Cryptogeddon Mission Pack 1 is a downloadable pdf document. It is 22 pages in length and provides all of the information you need to participate in this exciting infosec challenge.
  • This mission requires the use of Amazon Web Services (AWS) EC2 and this mission is compatible with Amazon Web Services’ Free Tier.
  • For a limited time, you can get special pricing for Mission Pack 1 – just $0.99! Click here to buy now!

Early Adopter Feedback Survey:
As an early subscriber to the Cryptogeddon mailing list, I’d like to share a unique opportunity with you to help shape the long term success of Cryptogeddon: I’m looking for some feedback from my early adopters to help make the product better. I’d like to know your thoughts on usability, design, layout, navigation, etc. as you’re interacting with Cryptogeddon.

  • I would appreciate if you could take the time to complete this survey: Cryptogeddon Early Adopter Feedback Survey
  • Please be honest and share your thoughts as I will be using this feedback to improve Cryptogeddon to make it better for you.

Thank you for allowing me into your inbox. I really appreciate the opportunity to reach out to you directly. I have a real passion for infosec and I hope that you’ll like Cryptogeddon as much as I do. Thanks again for your interest and talk soon!

Todd