Yo, Yo, Yo! it is Midnight right now as I am writing this, I got a new born baby and a five year old , I am going to let Mom sleep tonight, we split the nights so that means somehow I have to make time for them and at the same time I have to make time to study, that’s not including the time for Mom which is the most valuable player in this game called life, my wife do a lot for the kids, and as time keeps passing somehow I have to pay her back for everything that she has to put up with me, we met a in the Gym, I used to be a Crossfit Gym Junky, now I am just physically broke all around but somehow we still have to find time to better ourselves. I used to tell my Soldiers If you don’t take care of your selves no one is going to take care of you. If you don’t believe in your self no one is going to believe in you.
Next week there is a Cyber Defense Competition called CCDC or National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition, which I am part of my College Team, “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Collegiate_Cyber_Defense_Competition” You might say why a software Development guy would do something like this? The Answer? for me it is all about learning and becoming better, There are some videos of the Red Team Bragging about it” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oclbbqvawQg&pbjreload=101 “but little that they know alot of the kids going to compete are smart and already watching them, it aint like the College kids don’t know who they are. I do have a lot of respect becuase they amount of skill that you got to have to be in the red team is probably crazy! I mean you are not talking about the regular script kiddie here, this are professional guys that are going to get into your network, period. No matter how good you are, their whole purpose in life is just to get into your network. I am happy that I get to compete against this guys, our team is pretty good and even with all the curve balls that are going to be thrown at us, we are going to be ready for them. If we make it pass the state, I might paint my hair blond, I have never paint my hair like over 25 years so that would be awesome to see! HAHA! The thing about the CCDC competition is this, You don’t really know what computer is going to have what, even if you have an environment pic of what it looks like, it might changed, over the last year you have been training in a certain OS or application but the week before you might encounter something completely new in the competition so all you got to do is work with your team and help each other out while trying to get as many points as possible. I am ok when it comes to Linux but there are certain sites that we can’t use, I feel like some of the Python Scripts are just too long to use during the competition and there are only a certain amount of tools that you are allowed to use. I wish i could put everything in my github and just get everything from there but github might not even be allowed, so you have to live off the land, if you are using windows I am training using powershell and might use malware bytes, the rule is that it has to be free and can’t be a paid subscription, in Linux you have to know what package manager you are using, In my machine right now I might use rkhunter, maldet or walware detector, Linys and maybe multitails. I would like to use terminator in the competition and even be able to use a browser from the terminal, all i would need is the text. The first 30 mins of the competition the red team can’t attack but they can probably scan us and like everything they are going to see what ports we got open, i mean the already probably got our passwords that we gave out for the competition. I am thinking my self how can i use my python skills in competition? a port scanner? maybe, encrypting files,” I don’t know” how can I can possible slow down the red team. maybe closing the windows for them so they can take longer, I can’t just make a server because honey pots are not allowed. It will be an awesome competition. With that being say There is always got to have time for family. The Family is what keep pushing me to keep going forward, When I was in the military I lost a lot of time away from the family and I don’t want to do that again because family will always be there for you. Don’t be the developer that spends all his time away, If your boss do not care about your family, that means they do not care about their family so look for another job somewhere else, family is key and if your boss was to care about your family then you will probably bent over backwards to make sure your boss looks good too.
This is a Week Later after I wrote, Did the CCDC competition yesterday, it was crazy to tell you the truth. I had a Windows Server 2016 as soon as they said go you have to defend this box. my password didn’t want to work, 5 minutes later we found the right password, when I logged into my machine that thing say my Machine name was piguinator, I was like WTF! On top of that No Internet in the machines!! haha! Great Job red team. I already know how to set up my DHCP and DNS and Gateway so it didn’t take me that long to get out and download malware bites. downloaded, downloaded python 3.9 and went off line to run the AV. after I ran the AV I should have checked my Firewall rules becuase the Red Team changed all my rules, at the same time I couldn’t get into certain sites, that’s when my google dorks skills kicked and start to search for a CIS Benchmark for 2016 Windows Server Script filetype:txt and whala!! the whole script show up in the result. copy the script, paste in powershell and went off line to let the script run. went back on line downloaded wireshark and the fun began when I was just adding every IP that I would see in Wireshark that the fire main Fire wall person was telling me yup! add it! in the last few minutes of the competition we had some of our services up and running and most of our computers were up! MINE WAS!! Yes baby! I would see how the red team were trying to send an extremely amount of packet to me but little they know ports were close and their IPs were block! Great Experience, now I know what I am dealing with. the next time I am going to use python to my advantage. Now that I got some experience I am going to use tools to stop the red team, harden my system, examine logs and basically try to automate as much as I can, AUTOMATION is king when it comes to doing stuff. I had already wrote a script to black list IPs in python but didn’t get to use it because it didn’t work as fast as just adding a range of IPs to the firewall, basically click on the rule, hit properties and edit the scope, as soon as I was inputting the ips then I save it and open that screen again ready to type the next Ip! Fun Times!! We will not know if we make it to regionals until the middle of this week by the 25 of Feb. I’ll keep you guys inform the next thing for me is to learn how to examine logs using Regex in python. I got a friend who is helping me. I wish I could mention his name but He is bad ass malware analyst and would rather keep him in the down load. To some of you that helped me get where I am at today, Thank you I really appreciate your help and mentorship!
