National Cyber League Fall 2022

What is the NCL?

I recently participated in the National Cyber League's Fall 2022 Individual game. The NCL is a cyber security skills game open to currently enrolled college and high school students. It tests participants across multiple security domains with increasing difficulty over a timed period. Throughout the game, competitors are ranked based on the number of points they secure and their accuracy. At the end of the competition, players are presented with a scorecard that shows how they did in each area, and a skills map that shows their strengths and weaknesses.

The NCL has 2 seasons of games Spring and Fall. There is a gym to practice and learn with similar types of questions faced in the actual game. There is an individual practice game where participants test their skills alone with no help from anyone over the course of a week. This is followed by the individual game, which starts mid-day on a Friday and runs through the following Sunday evening.

The game covers the following topics:

• Open Source Intelligence
• Cryptography
• Password Cracking
• Log Analysis
• Network Traffic Analysis
• Wireless Access Exploitation
• Forensics
• Scanning
• Web Application Exploitation
• Enumeration & Exploitation

My Performance

I'm quite proud of my performance during the individual game and I did better in some sections than I expected I would.

I placed 242 out of 6643 competitors. I really struggled in the more offensive-type challenges like the Web Application Exploitation. I only got a single question right in that section, however, I've never put in the effort to study those sections. I've been mostly focused on the blue team-type skills. This has awakened an interest in me to pursue more offensive learning paths and I'll be adjusting my courses over the next few terms to incorporate that interest.

Lessons Learned

Sometimes you need to take a break from a challenging topic, reset, do something else, and come back with fresh eyes. There were several challenges where running an errand or pausing and returning to it the next morning allowed me to see something I couldn't see the first time. Additionally, I'll be taking better notes as I work through challenges in the future. I had several times where I revisted a series of challenges and couldn't remember how I arrived at the previous answers I had completed. Notes including what worked and what didn't work would have made it easier to pick back up where I left off and keep going.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed the Fall 2022 Individual game from the NCL and I'm looking forward to teaming up with some fellow students from PCC and competing again in a few weeks in the Fall 2022 Team game. If you know any College or High School students interested in Cyber Security, IT, or Programming I would highly recommend they look into participating in the National Cyber League to learn and practice real-world skills. If you're interested in learning more check out the National Cyber League