MWR Challenge 2013

We know you’ve all been waiting for it so we are pleased to announce that its MWR challenge time again!

This is a really exciting time of the year for us as it enables us to engage with some of the brightest emerging talent in the industry. We also get to give away some tickets to HackFu where we will get a chance to meet and compete alongside you in this year’s event.

This year we have put together a series of fun yet challenging activities to get your brains thinking about security. The challenges are titled “The Hunt for Ilichy” and put you in the hot seat of a counter intelligence operation. You’ll find out more once you take a look at the mission briefing included in the initial data files. Your instructions are simple, register, solve and submit. More details on this process are included below.

This year we are inviting you to register for the competition by dropping us an email at mwrchallenge2013@mwrinfosecurity.com including your name and your country of residence. You can also send us a paragraph introducing yourself (not required), we like to know who we are talking to. We will then send you a link to the challenges that will enable you to download them and thereby get you started. Please don’t publish the link as we’d like to keep tabs on the number of entries we may have to assess at the end but if you feel the need to tell all your friends where to find the download then we won’t get too mad at you.

Once you think you have the answers you will need to send them back to us at the email address you used to register (see instructions in the challenges file) and we will take a look at them. You will need to have registered with us initially for us to look at your entry so please don’t bypass that step! Get your entries back to us before 31st May 2013 if you would like to be considered for one of the prizes that are on offer (see below). Once the competition is over we will be publishing the answers and depending on how many people we get entries from we hope to give you some feedback on yours. If you get really stuck then ping us an email with your question and we will see if its worthy of some additional help, all hints will be published on the MWR Labs site to ensure everyone gets a fair chance. Don’t expect a personal response.

“So you mentioned prizes”, I can hear you saying. Yes we did! This year all entries received before the 31st May will have the chance to win a place at this year’s HackFu in the UK. In this prize you will get entry to the venue, a roof over your head for 3 nights (you need to provide something to sleep on), food & alcohol, great goodies to take home with you and most importantly a chance to compete in one of the greatest hacking events on the planet. If you have been solving the clues you will be getting close to knowing the venue by now and if you are clever you may have also discovered the theme.

We are hoping to give away 10 tickets to the event this year but the exact number will depend on how many people solve the challenges and how good the write ups that are submitted to us are. For exceptional entries the judges may also include travel to the event in the prize. The judging panel will be made up of people from the teams in SA and the UK who have worked together to put these awesome challenges together and their decisions about winners will be final. Even if you don’t want to have a chance of coming to HackFu (crazy I know) we are still interested in your submissions and if you would like to apply for a position as a consultant be sure to let us know (you may want to sneak your CV in with your entry).

Good luck and we hope you have fun solving the challenges.

Important but boring legal bits below…

Competition Rules

In order to be eligible for the HackFu prizes, you will need to:

• Register for the competition by email including your name and country of residence
• Submit your correct solutions to the challenges before the 31st May 2013
• Be able to travel to HackFu which is hosted in the UK between 27th June 2013 and 29th June 2013 (you will need to hold any required travel documents)
• Be 18 years old or over on the 27th June 2013

Judges’ decisions are final and any prize offered to an entrant cannot be exchanged for cash or favours. MWR will not officially publish a list of competition winners; however, entrants can send us an email to request confirmation about whether they have won a prize or not.