Honeynet Project: The Reverse Challenge

The Honeynet Project announced the Reverse Challenge, a new challenge that will let security practitioners compete by reverse engineering a binary file captured from the Internet. The competition is open to anyone, and participants must produce an analysis of the file that includes what the binary file does, its features and capabilities, the encoding process it uses, how to detect traffic the file produces, the self-protection techniques it uses, and the identification of other tools that act in a similar fashion to the binary.

A spokesperson for the Honeynet Project said that sometime in 2002, an intruder compromised the project's network of honeypots and installed and ran the binary file on the network's honeypot systems. Subsequently, the operators of the honeypot network captured the binary file and then launched the new challenge to see which competitor can derive the most accurate information from the file. The competition officially begins May 6, 2002, when the team will make the binary file available for download.

The deadline for submissions is Friday, May 31, 2002, and all submissions must be time-stamped by 24:00 GMT on that date. Judges will select 20 winners, who will receive various prizes, including licensed copies of DataRescue's IDA Pro, a $200 Amazon gift certificate from DataRescue, and a free pass to the Black Hat Briefings. In addition, the top 20 entries receive a signed copy of the Honeynet Project's book, "Know Your Enemy." More information is available about the contest on the project's Web site.