Making and Breaking NSA's Codebreaker Challenge

Explore the National Security Agency's (NSA) Codebreaker Challenge in this 41-minute Black Hat conference talk. Discover how the NSA's technical experts design custom challenges that mimic real-world problems faced in their mission, incorporating code analysis and reverse engineering tasks. Learn about the competition's growth from its inception with 5 schools in 2013 to its current scale, involving over 4,800 participants from 449 U.S. schools in 2022. Gain insights into the challenge's structure, featuring up to 10 rounds of increasing difficulty, and understand the impressive feat achieved by the 104 individuals who completed all 9 rounds in the most recent competition. Delve into the intricacies of this annual event that has become a significant platform for showcasing and developing cybersecurity skills across the United States.