A New Challenge from Honeynet

cjpez writes: "The people at the Honeynet have issued another challenge on the Bugtraq mailing list. Instead of hacking into a box, though, this time your goal is to submit the best analysis of a binary file they'll post on Monday, May 6th. Think you're good at reverse engineering? Then try it out! They're even offering actual prizes, so you can get something besides the feeling of personal fulfillment for your trouble. The post hasn't quite made it to SecurityFocus' Bugtraq Archive yet, but I did find it at another Bugtraq archive in Germany (slashdottings abound!). The URL included in the email, http://project.honeynet.org/reverse/, doesn't seem to be active yet, so presumably we can assume it'll go up on Monday. The post fails to address other concerns, though: will the winner be in violation of the DMCA? :P The challenge was also issued, obviously enough, on SecurityFocus' Honeypot mailing list."" In a later note, he points out that the announcement has finally made it to the Bugtraq archive page." (And that URL is active now.)

Comments

how...

[GreenPhreak]

This seems like a really cool contest to raise awareness on security matters. This feels kind of like an ACM problem, except less programming and probably a lot more real-world experience. Anyway, I've never tried to figure out what binary files do...I always refer to source files. Are there many tools available for looking at or figuring out what binaries do? Any reference pages? (the one linked on the article page isn't very helpful). Can someone provide more information about forensics with binaries? Thank you.