NetWars Core Tournament Champion

I won the NetWars Core Tournament here at SANS Rocky Mountain last night.  I never thought that I'd say those words.  I just happened to luck out.  There weren't many alumni here this time that I know of-ie players that had played before.  

Achievement Unlocked:

People assume that I know more than I do.

I will be the first to say, I still have a lot to learn, and I really mean that.  I'm not working in information security or IT.  I hope to be soon, but I'm not in the field yet.  I love this field because it is a field that continually challenges you to learn and grow.

I'm a NetWars Tournament Champion, and last night, I wasn't doing much hacking.  People watching were wondering if I was going to score again.  I had 248 at the beginning of the night, and it took a while for me to score.  Why?  Because I was testing the functionality of something, figuring out how it works.  The technology used in this particular point in the game was something I was unfamiliar with.  Once I figured out enough of how it worked, then I tried to find ways to exploit it.  So it was a while before I finally put points on the board.  I ended up being at 275 by the end of the night.  Then I didn't really know where to go from there.  So it would've taken more time for me to figure that out.

I highly encourage people to go to NetWars.  Even if you think that you don't know much.  It's worth it for what you can learn, and you'd be surprised how much you learn from it.  Considering NetWars comes free with a 5-6 day course, there is no reason not to play.  Maybe you'll luck out and be the next champion, even if you don't, that really shouldn't be the goal.  The goal should be learning as much as you can.

Tips:

Keep meticulous notes.  Sometimes, we come across a problem that is similar, possibly even exactly the same, to problems that we've seen before.

Don't worry about what others are doing.  You don't have to be perfect.  No-one started in the field perfect.  To this day, I'm sure that even the experts sometimes feel lost about what to do.

Stay calm.  You'll hear people saying, "Yes!" and other things.  Don't let it discourage you.  Persistence is key.  You'll eventually get there, just keep trying.

Ask for help.  The SANS people are more than happy to help when they can, especially if it's a technical issue that isn't part of the game.  Even if it is part of the game, they will happily give hints to help you get unstuck.

Copy down the NetWars questions-levels 1-2, you can work on outside of NetWars-they are all on the image.

Level 3-4-think of creative ways you can work on it-for example, screen shot pages, so you can study how it works.  Many times, we think attack, when we should be thinking of more defensive things. :)

 Google anything that you don't know.  It's ok to Google.

SANS TA

Having an interesting week this week.  Working as a TA for SANS.  I wasn't quite sure I was ready for it.  Still not sure I'm ready for it.  Currently Day 4.  So far most of the questions haven't been too difficult.  I've come across some that I didn't know exactly how to resolve them without asking someone for help or looking them up.  Anyone who's worked in technical support knows that that is normal.

I'm hoping that this first time isn't my last time as a TA.  I enjoy helping people and learning from people that are more knowledgeable than I am.  It's difficult to read exactly what the instructor thinks about my performance, though.  The conversations between myself and the instructor have been, "Everything ok?", "Hi.", and "How are you?"  Don't misunderstand, he's a nice guy.  Just haven't talked to him a lot.

One big tip for people who are considering being a TA:

Always recheck what the students say.  This is not anything against students at all.  The students all come from different backgrounds, and many of them are probably more knowledgeable than you are, but, sometimes it's really easy to overlook one little thing, especially when there are long training hours.  We are in bootcamp hours:  9AM - 7PM.

Example:  Two similar user names are on the virtual machine.  The usernames have the same password.  Sometimes students log into the wrong one.
I asked, "Did you log in to the correct user?"  They thought that they did.  I didn't follow up on it to check because if you're in this class, you probably know at least as much or more than I do.  So, the time I spent fixing a couple of short cuts so that they could complete a lab could have  taken less time just by switching users.

I'm taking notes of some of the issues that came up this time, just in case I get to do this again, so I can remember what to look for next time.  I'm sure if I do this again, I'll get some more off the wall questions.  There's always something more to learn.

"R00k" has a good guide on being a TA.  You may want to visit his blog for more information: https://r00k.io/2017/05/experiences-of-a-sans-ta/.