HACKINT

Hello all,

The next class being taught will be done at Ramstein AB (ADPE building as usual) from 0900-1600 and it will be the Intrusion Detection Systems class.  This class is meant for anyone familiar with computers that is not familiar with Intrusion Detection Systems including the opensource and free software – Snort.  The class will cover the basics of an IDS, definitions, different types, and signature rule creation.  Students will have an opportunity to create their own rules in a Virtual Machine to test out against Packet Captures from Wireshark.

In addition, I’ll be flying from Germany tomorrow to San Diego, California to attend AFCEA West.  hackINT has been given a few minutes to give a presentation on what the organization is and what its future goals are.  If you are visiting this website after having seen my presentation on hackINT thanks for stopping in.  This website is meant to only be a temporary website and I and a few friends are currently working on the official hackINT site which will launch later this year.  The launch of the official site will have a much more professional layout, more information about hackINT, and online recorded classes available to students.

If you have any questions about hackINT or are in the Ramstein area and want to sign up for the Feb 16th class please email me at RobertMichael.Lee (..at..) Gmail.com

The goals for hackINT in this next year will be to:

– Develop 3-6 additional classes

– Launch the official website with 3-4 recorded classes available at launch

– Create the “hackINT” position on the Young AFCEAN council for Chapter 158

– Spread hackINT to another Air Force base (likely one in PACAF following a certain Major who will be moving there from Chapter 158)

Thanks,

Robert

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted, luckily Eric has been posting for me some about classes he’s been teaching at Ramstein AB.  I’ve had a lot on my plate lately with moving, grad classes, and the like but again I want to throw some kudos to Eric for doing such a great job teaching at Ramstein.  The next class will be offered November 10th (Fundamentals of Hacking) and I will be down at Ramstein for that one to co-teach with Eric (he doesn’t need it but it makes me feel important).

It’s exciting that HACKINT is getting ready to release two more classes.  Eric has been working hard on the Intermediate Hacking class and he’ll be testing it soon to a select crowd shortly followed by hosting the beta class.  Beta classes are incredibly important for HACKINT and us instructors.  It is an opportunity for students to come in, take the class, and offer feedback that will quickly be used to update the class.  For beta classes it’s asked that students have some familiarity with the material even if it’s just slightly researched before taking the class.  This allows students to ask better questions, state what they were expecting (if expectations weren’t met), and so on.  The second class that’s going to be offered is Intrusion Detection Systems.  I was originally going to make the Fundamentals of Forensics the next class but it’s become apparent that quite a few people have been wanting an IDS class and knowledge on how to setup an IDS for home use, tune it, and figure out what’s going on in their network.  I’ve been working on the class (not as hard as Eric has been on his admittedly) and will have it available to the public in December.  Shortly after that class, I will go ahead and create the Fundamentals of Forensics class followed by a few others (currently looking into Malware Analysis and a few others).

Lastly, HACKINT has been a fun project and grassroots type approach to free education for the military members at Ramstein but it’s apparent to Eric and I that we won’t be stationed near each other for much longer.  As always HACKINT is looking to train up another couple of instructors to take over for us or to take to their next base.  To also help the transition though, I’m currently looking at the possibility of a new website and online class format so that military members and civilians can take the classes and at their own leisure/regardless of location.

There’s a LOT to do and plenty of other real life concerns going on in the world but I’ll update as often as possible as HACKINT keeps pushing forward.

All the best,

Rob

Tom Hamlyn was kind enough to take pictures during the HACKINT 2012 competition which are posted below.  At the next AFCEA luncheon we’ll be presenting an award to each of the team members from Team TracerT for taking first place in the competition.  They were truly an awesome group and the AF is lucky to have such skilled operators.  More importantly they were humble and helped out the other teams’ members who were less trained when they ran into issues.  I’ve never seen that at a hacking competition before and was proud to have it happen amongst Air Force members.

Eric Trombly and I have been working hard to finalize the edits to the Fundamentals of Hacking class.  The next offering (already full) is August 4th and it will be one of the last times I teach the Fundamentals of Hacking class at Ramstein AB.  Eric has proven to be incredibly competent and passionate about teaching so he will be taking over the reins of the class at Ramstein which will allow the class to be taught more often.  I will take the class and be teaching around the Frankfurt area where I currently live.  Furthermore, I’m going to start working on a Forensics class now that the Fundamentals of Hacking class is at a solid state.

There are others who have approached HACKINT about becoming instructors and teaching the class at their location; very exciting!  We will be incorporating a new system at HACKINT where we have Assistant Instructors, Instructors and Lead Instructors.  An Assistant Instructor is someone who wants to volunteer/help out teaching alongside an Instructor.  After an Assistant Instructor teaches alongside an Instructor for a few classes they can become an Instructor and teach on their own.  A Lead Instructor is someone who develops/guides a course and how it is developed and carried on.  All along the way those who help teach at every level will (besides just doing good work for the future generation) be rewarded with professional references and resume building material from the HACKINT staff.

All in all we at HACKINT are very excited about the level of support not only from the Ramstein AB and AFCEA community but those who have reached out with support from outside our community.  Thanks again and all the best!

Setting up for HACKINT 2012

Team TracerT getting setup before the competition

Announcing the rules before the competition kicks off

Today Eric Trombly and I ran the HACKINT 2012 competition which was a king of the hill styled hacking competition. We were fortunate enough to host it at the Ramstein AB Tech Expo with the support of AFCEA Chapter 158 and its members.

The event went surprisingly smooth overall and we had three teams made of members from squadrons across the base.  The TracerT team came in first overall with Hacknots and Arp both coming in second place.

More details and pictures will come later including those from the awards ceremony which will occur at next month’s AFCEA Chapter 158 monthly luncheon.

There was also a lot of great support and interest in HACKINT and the classes we teach.  Eric and I are working on a way now to be able to offer more classes both at Ramstein AB and in the Frankfurt area. More details to come.

Overall I just want to thank everyone again for participating and helping out. The first year of anything is usually rough and I was expecting more trouble hosting the first HACKINT hacking competition, however it went very well because of the support received. Once again congrats to Team TracerT for winning this year’s competition!

Next week at the Ramstein AB AFCEA Technology Expo HACKINT will be hosting it’s first ever hacking challenge.  This year’s hacking challenge will focus on a King-of-the-Hill style competition where teams will compete for control of computers and servers for points.  The event will take place July 18th and at this point we have four teams from around the base competing.  Competitions like this not only encourage people to get involved and learn about cyber but also provide a legal way for hackers to showcase their skills.  If all goes well, fingers crossed, this will be a great event and I’m excited to be a part of it.  I want to thank all the members around Ramstein who have helped put this together and thank you to the teams who have signed up to compete.

More information to follow next week…

It’s good to see HACKINT get a little publicity from the Ramstein AB paper – Kaiserslautern American.  Capt Tom Hamlyn wrote up the article (thanks!) and submitted it.  As HACKINT goes forward I’m excited to see interest continue to grow.

To view the article please visit:

http://www.kaiserslauternamerican.com/article.php?i=19922

The 2nd ever HACKINT class was completed today.  Eric Trombly and I remodeled the two day class we were teaching to fit everything in to one day.  We went through the Hacker’s Methodology and then useful tools/tactics from regex to BackTrack.  The students (we had a full class of 11) came in with no experience in hacking and left understanding the methodology and having hands on experience cracking passwords, creating keyloggers, scanning/picking vulnerabilities, remotely exploiting machines, and more.  It really speaks volumes about the people in the Air Force to be honest.  I enjoy teaching/talking about cyber so I get a lot of joy in the opportunity to do this class.  But when you view people like Eric and the students who are so passionate about learning/teaching that they give up 10 hours of their free time on a Saturday it’s hard not to feel really good about the future of the cyberspace domain.  I’ll reemphasize that.  Students give up 10 hours of their free time on a Saturday to come learn about hacking/cyber because they are interested in the future of the cyber domain.  I am continually honored to serve among people I can admire and respect so greatly.

I plan to continue to rework the class to add in some more features/tools and to fine tune it.  I will also continue teaching the class 1-3 times a month; as long as I keep having interested and passionate students it is a privilege.   After I get most of the guys/gals on Ramstein that are interested in the class through it I’m going to start developing the Fundamentals of Forensics class for HACKINT and start offering that.

All the best,
Robert

“Always learning, always teaching.”

I’m pleased to announce that HACKINT will be offering the Fundamentals to Hacking course on Ramstein AB on June 30th.  This is the second time the class has been taught and this course has been reserved by one of the Group’s on base.  It’s great to hear the feedback from people that have taken the course as well as those who want to attend.  For a Group to request the course is particularly exciting and shows the interest for this kind of material.  I believe that courses like this motivate people to gain interest in the cyberspace domain and ultimately learn more.  We all use the Internet whether you are a cyberspace operator or you just enjoy browsing on your personal computer.   The skills developed in the cyberspace domain, even if fundamental, prepare users in any role to better defend their computers.  Almost as equally important, this material is fun and challenges people to think in ways they have not before; this is beneficial in every aspect of life.

Stepping away from the cyber pulpit for a second though…I’d like to mention that preparations are still underway for HACKINT 2012 which will be held on Ramstein AB at the Technology Expo put on by AFCEA Chapter 158.  For more information check the links on this website.  I will post more when teams start registering.

All the best,

Robert

Earlier today I wrapped up teaching the first ever HACKINT course – Fundamentals of Hacking.  Ten students from various Squadrons across Ramstein Air Base, Germany came together to take part in the two day course.  As it was the first ever offering of the class there were definitely some speed bumps and issues that had to be resolved on the fly.  Luckily, I had Eric Trombly as my assistant instructor and technical director to help me out.  He was critical in teaching the students about Openvas, helping the students in configuring their systems, and answering random Linux questions (his specialty).  All in all it was a great experience and I was really impressed with the students.

The course started out by covering the ethics and legality of hacking (over and over again).  From there students learned how to use and configure BackTrack 5 Live cds before moving on to installing BackTrack as the OS on the computers in the lab.  Eric and I then taught the steps to the Hacker Methodology before moving on to teaching about nmap, the power of the command line vs. GUIs, and then about  Openvas and various regex commands.  The course culminated in giving students hands on hacking experience with using BackTrack against Vulnerable Machines that I set up on my personal server.  I taught the students how to look for vulnerable services, pick out the best exploits, and gaining a remote shell on their targets.  The students then moved into cracking passwords, capturing screenshots of compromised computers, and gaining an understanding of privilege escalation and pivoting. Honestly, for a fundamentals class this was a huge information dump for the students yet they excelled at every turn.  More than that, they were patient with me as I had to overcome various issues (for example a Windows 98 VM proved to be much more of a challenge than it ever should have been).

The students gave me a lot of positive and constructive feedback for making the course better.  For example, I’ll be working on creating some demo videos, screenshots of examples, and step by step instructions for various sections instead of the less organized approach to teaching I tried.  As much as the students learned over these past two days I equally learned about teaching.  I have to admit it was a joyous and proud moment to be able to teach this class.  I’m looking forward to offering it again soon.

Overall, Eric and I were very impressed with the students’ work and the conversations they had.  I was personally inspired to see how eager they were to take the information back to their Squadrons and peers.  These skills will not only allow them to hack machines and develop a niche of their own but to do so ethically and ultimately become better network defenders.  On the morning of the second day I started off the class with Johnny Long’s “No-Tech Hacking” DEFCON 15 talk; as I heard the students laugh and enjoy the video it became obvious that we have some future hackers on our hands.

Eric Trombly teaching at HACKINT's first class

Robert Lee teaching at the first HACKINT class

The first ever HACKINT training class is going to be offered this Friday and Saturday (18th-19th) on Ramstein Air Base.  Originally I was just going to have a small event where I brought in people already knowledgeable with hacking to try out the King-of-the-Hill competition on my server.  Since I bought the server and this is my first time loading up the challenge on it I wanted to stress test it against multiple people hacking in preparation for HACKINT 2012 this summer.  However, as I was getting ready for the event there were quite a few people asking me if I could teach them some of the more basic concepts and tools to hacking.  It made sense to go ahead and wrap the stress test and class all into one.  All in all a neat way for the origin to the class.

That being said, I’m sure I’m going to be hitting some obstacles with the class this weekend.  Hopefully since the class is small, only about 10 members, and free there will be some patience with my server equipment and the virtual machines.  Luckily, one of the guys I work with, Eric Trombly, has volunteered to help teach the class with me and to get into the classroom all this week to work out any bugs.  We’ve got a long week ahead of us to get everything working perfectly but I’m optimistic and very excited about the class this weekend.