Space Grand Challenge Competition 2022

  Written by Silvia Serrano

A group of ABC students: Daniella Jerez, Sebastián Ortíz, Isabella Portillo

and Alejandra Jerez, participated in the Space Grand Challenge 2022

competition, which took place online, on October 8th, 2022. After seven hours of competition the students placed first in the international beginner category!

The challenge which was for middle/high school students from across the globe

was a gamified satellite/space-based cybercrime challenge scenario developed

by the California Cybersecurity Institute at Cal Poly . 

The ABC has a special relationship with Cal Poly, through the Cyber to Schools Program, in which several ABC students are enrolled and earn a series of

micro-credentials in cybersecurity. The program is supported by the following

organisations: Fortinet, LMNTRIX, Lockheed Martin, Secureworks, AWS,

Foundation of the Future, NSSA, JPL NASA, and United States Space Force.

The cybersecurity space-themed Esports game is intended for

beginner-level/intermediate-level participants. It is composed of a

multi-layered cybercrime plot written by students who work and study

at Cal Poly. The game comes complete with complex characters,

physical and digital forensic evidence chains, and puzzles that challenge

participants who are required to search through the evidence and analyse

it in order to solve a satellite/space hacking crime. In doing so they engage

in gamification and esports for space and cybersecurity skill development,

using specialized tools across cybersecurity, space, satellites, deep pace

networking, and forensics.

During the two months, they spent preparing for this challenge, the students

learned an amazing number of skills which focus on cybersecurity. These skills

include:

• The skills Basic-Social-Engineering-Tactics

• Denial of Service Attack

• Malware

• Ping of Death Script

• Satellite-Jamming/Spoofing

• OSI-Model

• Indicators-of-attack-(IOA)

• Deep-Space-Networks

• Logic-Bombs

• Cloud-based computing

• Remote Desktop Protocol

• VPN, Virtual Private Network

• Basic-Linux-Skills

• PowerShell

• The-National-Cybersecurity-Workforce-Framework-NICE

• Wireshark-&-PCAP-Analysis

• Web-Server-Exploitation

• Digital-Forensics

• Software Defined Radios

• Basic-awareness-of-the-InterPlanetary-Networking-Special-Interest-Group

• AutoRuns

• Domain-Generation-Algorithm-(DGA)

• Cryptocurrencies

• Common-Vulnerabilities-and-Exposures-(CVE)

• Collaboration-Skills

• Cybersecurity-Ethics

• Orbital-Mechanics

• Blockchain

Gameplay Stats

# of total Players: 332 

# of Teams: 72

# # of Participating High Schools: 35

Gender Distribution: 

Males: 225

Females: 96

Did Not Disclose: 11