Cyber Student Crew (formerly Project Cyber)

Name Change Coming Soon!

2023-09-19T17:31:55.456000Z

Hello readers,

I will be changing the name of Project Cyber to a new name soon. Stay tuned for what the new name will be!

- Rajvi

UPDATE: Project Cyber is now Cyber Student Crew.

Notice: SANS Holiday Hack Challenge & KringleCon Are Still On!

2023-01-09T07:44:45.112000Z

Happy 2023!

Is one of your New Years Resolution to explore more in cybersecurity? Start the New Year strong and take a break with some cybersecurity video talks: the SANS Holiday Hack Challenge and KringleCon is fun, festive, and it's all about cybersecurity! If you have not yet participated at KringleCon, now's your chance! Head to this website to find out more: https://www.sans.org/mlp/holiday-hack-challenge/. Here's a link to the Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@KringleCon/videos

Link to my talk at the conference: https://youtu.be/O1vc5yDUeiE

Ransomware and Tips on Preventing It

2022-08-12T04:59:02.718000Z

Author: Marie Ramirez

Date: 8/6/2022

Ransomware is a horrible and widespread cyber attack these days. Many major companies, government agencies, personal devices, and schools have all been impacted by ransomware around the world. Despite the reality of these attacks, they can be protected by following some simple cybersecurity practices, such as cybersecurity awareness training, especially for phishing attacks, the use of antivirus software, and practicing system backups.

So, what is ransomware? Ransomware is a type of malicious software (malware) that threatens to publish or blocks access to data or a computer system, usually by encrypting it, until the victim pays a ransom fee to the attacker. Usually, ransomware comes with a deadline. If the victim does not pay before the deadline, their files will be deleted or published. Most of the amounts asked are a lot of money, especially if ransomware hits these major companies. Even if these victims pay the amount asked, they are most likely to be attacked again, especially if it is not cleaned from their system or if security protections are not implemented.

There are various ways that can help protect you from being attacked by ransomware, and if implemented, these tips can help minimize the risk of being attacked. Even though this cannot protect you in all cases, it will for sure protect you in most cases. These practices are very simple yet very effective.

Keeping your device up to date is a crucial step in helping you prevent a ransomware attack. Performing these regular updates will prevent your device from any malware and fix up with the new security patches, which would ultimately make it harder for cybercriminals to take advantage of your system.
Another tip is to make sure that you are using familiar sources. If it is an unknown source, make sure to do a bit of research on that source to make sure it is safe to use.
Do not open or click on unsafe links or suspicious emails coming from unknown sources/people.
A very important tip to protect your data is to create a backup. If your data is encrypted by ransomware and you're unable to get it back, ALL your data would be saved and you would not have to worry about losing it. If you don’t have it backed up when you are attacked, you have potentially lost everything. So if you backup your data in intervals regularly, you save yourself a lot of trouble.
Verify email senders. If you are uncertain whether an email is authentic or not, try to confirm it by getting in touch with the sender. Do not click any of the email's links. Before contacting the sender, check the contact details you have for them with an earlier (legitimate) email, if at all possible.

It’s a shame that many companies, both big and small, which are attacked by ransomware, do not do these simple tasks, as that would help prevent them from all of this.

A recent example of a ransomware attack was at my high school. My school had made an announcement early this summer that they had been attacked by ransomware and were unsure if they were able to get all their data back. It was unclear if they had their data backed up, or done any of these things that could have prevented them from this. This shows that these simple tasks on your system would prevent you from all the stress of being attacked by ransomware. There are ways that you may not think it's ransomware like in an email. Nowadays, phishing is a common way that ransomware attacks occur. Phishing is a primary source to a ransomware infection. It’s especially common since the pandemic because everyone is starting to use their emails to communicate. They are disguised as emails that have a familiar or known person, company, etc. trying to email you and have context that may fool you into thinking that it’s a legitimate message to you. The people who get the phishing email are both high- and low-privileged users. Email is a cheap and simple method for spreading ransomware, making it ideal for attackers. People have no concerns about viewing a file attached to an email because documents are frequently sent over email. When the malicious macro is activated, ransomware is downloaded to the local device before the payload is delivered. Ransomware is a frequent malware threat because it is simple to spread over email. This is why we should practice these simple steps to prevent this from happening to innocent people around the world.

References:

What is ransomware? - definition, prevention & more: Proofpoint us. Proofpoint. (2022, July 19). Retrieved July 21, 2022, from https://www.proofpoint.com/us/threat-reference/ransomware

What is ransomware? - definition, prevention & more: Proofpoint us. Proofpoint. (2022, July 19). Retrieved July 21, 2022, from https://www.proofpoint.com/us/threat-reference/ransomware

Security tip (ST19-001). CISA. (n.d.). Retrieved July 21, 2022, from https://www.cisa.gov/uscert/ncas/tips/ST19-001
Kaspersky. (2022, February 17). Ransomware protection: How to keep your data safe in 2022. usa.kaspersky.com. Retrieved July 21, 2022, from https://usa.kaspersky.com/resource-center/threats/how-to-prevent-ransomware

Ideas to add to your Cyber Bucket List

2023-10-07T19:28:34.923000Z

Now that summer is in full swing, here are some great cybersecurity podcasts, movies, books, and events to add to your Cyber To Do List!

Here is what some of Cyber Student Crew (previously Project Cyber) members had to say:

Ana Batranović - "I'm looking forward to listening to more Darknet Diaries and reading the Hacker Tribe book series."

From a poll I created titled: "STEM / Cyber To Do List, what are you looking forward to the most?" on our Google Classroom, where the options were:
- Watching STEM / cybersec MOVIES
- Reading STEM / cybersec BOOKS
- Listening to STEM / cybersec PODCASTS
- Other? Comment :)

Many, including Chana Aspir, said that they were interested in reading cybersecurity books!

Marie and Atom Ramirez shared the announcement:

Marie Ramirez and Atom Ramirez will be speakers, come and support.

SCaLE 19X – the 19th annual Southern California Linux Expo – will take place July 28-31, 2022 at the Hilton Los Angeles Airport in Los Angeles, CA.
https://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale/19x/presentations/engaging-students-customized-linux-images-cybersecurity-training

https://www.socallinuxexpo.org/blog/speaker-spotlight-atom-ramirez-marie-ramirez

Both Marie and Atom are Cyber Student Crew members. Congratulations to both!

If you're interested in adding more to-do's to your bucket list, here are some ideas!
MOVIES
- The Imitation Game: the storyline on IMDb is "It is based on the real life story of legendary cryptanalyst Alan Turing. The film portrays the nail-biting race against time by Turing and his brilliant team of code-breakers at Britain's top-secret Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, during the darkest days of World War II."
BOOKS
- Raven (Cinzento Academy #1) by Ms. Sue Loh! It's a fast-paced novel about teens at a cybersecurity academy who are investigating a hack. Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53534585-raven. We read this book at two of our Project Cyber Cybersecurity Book Club events, where we partnered with the Hacker Book Club Group through our advisor, Ms. Angela Marafino! Here is the articles posted about the Book Club events: https://championing-security.postach.io/post/cybersecurity-book-club-opportunity-open-to-members-of-project-cyber-teens-interested-in-cybersec
- "The Code Book" by Simon Singh. This is a classic book that's a must-read. It deals with cryptography and code-breaking.
PODCASTS
- CyberWire: https://thecyberwire.com/. According to their website: The CyberWire is an independent voice delivering concise, accessible, and relevant cybersecurity news briefings and cybersecurity podcasts.

CTF Challenges By Cyber Student Crew Members (previously Project Cyber)

2023-10-07T19:25:05.444000Z

Want to try your hand at CTF Challenges? Here are some challenges created by Cyber Student Crew (previously Project Cyber) members! If you want an intro to what CTFs are, check out the article we have on it here: It's officially CTF Season! Some tips n' tricks to help

1) Creator: Adishree Das

Topic: Cryptography/Encoding

You find a strange type of code. What does it mean?
VW0xNGFGcDZiMmRaTTJ4cFdsaEtabGt5YUd4YVp6MDk=

Highlight below to get some hints! The text is in white to avoid giving it away at once ;)

* If you're not sure what to do, use Control + A.

Hint: 3 times the charm
Hint 2: CyberChef

Highlight below to get the flag.

Solution: This is encoded in base 64 format. Use a decoder tool like CyberChef to decode it. The flag is "cyber_chef"

2) Creator: Marie Ramirez

Topic: Open Source Intelligence (OSINT)

I have to meet someone at this location, but I want to stop by Starbucks before we meet.

What's the address of the nearest Starbucks?