"The confrontation" NeoQUEST-2018: remember how it was
Have you been to NeoQUEST-2018?
If NO, then this review is especially for you - read and immediately start planning a visit to NeoQUEST next year! And if YES, then you +100 to personal cybersecurity, and a great opportunity to remember how it was!
At the right time, in the right place
This year, NeoQUEST's location was Krestovsky Island (if you choose the area, this is the most elite!) From 10 am, Parklane Resort & Spa has already begun to host the first guests of the event.
As usual, our long-awaited finalists of the on-line stage of the CTF competition came first. They were to undergo an 8-hour cyber-test, consisting of 11 tasks on various topics. All the guys were determined to win, because it was for the sake of what to try - at the end of the day the three best participants were expected to receive honorary awards and great prizes, but ... more on that later!
Meanwhile, the guests approached, and at 11 am the “confrontation” NeoQUEST-2018 successfully started! Presenter Gleb Markelov greeted the guests, told the most important moments of the upcoming day, announced the first report and ... it started!
We will not describe the content of each report, because it’s better to see once than to read many times - soon we will post videos of all the reports on our YouTube channel . Subscribe not to miss!
It should be noted that, following the results of the voting, the top reports were defined, which the guests especially remember. A report on the safety of drones with a demonstration of the exploitation of the vulnerability of a quadrocopter ripped off the audience award, and the top three included reports about the first seconds of a computer’s life and neural network in steganography. In the Fast-track section, the best reports were about blocking Facebook users and clever DCI technology, which provides access to hardware debugging via USB 3.0 ports.
Leading cool, and interesting contests
In the intervals between the reports, it was also not boring - everyone had the opportunity to win a prize by correctly answering cybersecurity tasks. The guests successfully coped with all the trials - they learned popular songs performed by bots, sorted out the variety of sounds made by the computer, decided complex cinema-cyber puzzles and even spent a little time with psychics, guessing the characters in their shadows.
Traditional Twitter quiz also had a place to be. Tasks were laid out every hour, their complexity was constantly changing - there were almost childish riddles and tasks like “hellish hell”. If you did not participate in the quiz - it's time to fix it! Terms of assignments can be found on our Twitter-channel . First try to decide for yourself, and if it doesn't work, then here’s an article for you .with analysis (but you can open it only after you try it yourself - do not pry in advance!)
Nitrogen Highlight
A separate event of the day was the return to the program of the Cold Boot show. The guys demonstrated how to restore the virtual machine screen from the computer’s memory using liquid nitrogen!
The show turned out really spectacular, the guests were delighted! And for those who missed the chance to see the attack with liquid nitrogen live, we prepared a video of this magic!
If you don’t go to Defcon, then Defcon comes to you
. This year, the DEF CON team from Nizhny Novgorod (if you haven’t heard - urgently here ), widely known in narrow circles as DC7831, came to NeoQUEST and brought one more entertainment for our guests - your author's quest!
The guys were present all day in the main hall, so the guests had the opportunity to personally receive a hint in the passage of the quest, take a sticker “DC7831” and just chat with smart and interesting people (and also excellent specialists!).
Any work should be rewarded, and hackers never do anything for nothing, therefore the best prospectors of the quest were, of course, presented with souvenirs with DEF CON and NeoQUEST symbols!
And the mustache flew, and got into his mouth.
Also this year NeoQUEST had a wonderful sponsor - St. Petersburg company Medovarus , which makes very tasty drinks. Since hackers need a sober mind, we only served non-alcoholic lemonade at the event, but for those who want to try something more interesting, there is a much larger range. And for those who wish to fully immerse themselves in the brand atmosphere (“Medovarus is a world of freedom, dreams and inspiration”), we recommend visiting their bar with our own medovarening workshop in Muchny Lane - Art Lab Medovarus. Connoisseurs will appreciate!
Summing up
At the end of the day, when all the most interesting has already been told and shown, the moment of truth has come - awarding the finalists of the CTF competition! The lucky winner of the first place was traditionally awarded with a trip to one of the international conferences on information security. The prize for second place was the electric scooter, for the third - smart watches. Winners - congratulations, glory and respect! Cybersecurity is proud of you.
Soon there will be an analysis of several of the most difficult tasks from the CTF competition, as well as articles based on the most interesting reports. Join the VK community not to miss. And of course, we are waiting for everyone to “confront” next year! In the meantime, look at cool photos from our photographers, eat more of these soft French buns, and drink tea!