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Do you have the brains for cybersecurity?

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Do you have the brains for cybersecurity?

#11

Post by mortehu »

tshadwell wrote: post #6

What area of 'cybersecurity' would I be finding myself breaking substitution ciphers based on wingdings in? I work in the information security industry, and I feel like I'm missing something but I really have to ask what these are relevant to. Cryptography, which this appears to be a reduced form of is mostly tangential and very nuanced relative to the ciphers in this challenge. I often feel my line of work is grossl…

This looks like it could have been inspired by the Cipher Challenge[1] from The Code Book[2], which starts with monoalphabetic substitution problems.

1. http://simonsingh.net/cryptography/cipher-challenge/the-ciph...

2. http://www.amazon.com/The-Code-Book-Science-Cryptography/dp/...

Re: Do you have the brains for cybersecurity?

#12

Post by [deleted] »

tshadwell wrote: post #6

What area of 'cybersecurity' would I be finding myself breaking substitution ciphers based on wingdings in? I work in the information security industry, and I feel like I'm missing something but I really have to ask what these are relevant to. Cryptography, which this appears to be a reduced form of is mostly tangential and very nuanced relative to the ciphers in this challenge. I often feel my line of work is grossl…

[deleted]

Re: Do you have the brains for cybersecurity?

#13

Post by patcheudor »

I have mixed feelings about this. While being a good puzzle solver is important, to be really good you need a certain level of creativity in thinking which goes beyond just the ability to solve puzzles. Thinking like a criminal as an example is a necessity in a number of cyber-security fields and can trump the ability to solve puzzles. I see a lot of vulnerabilities get marginalized because people simply can't correlate how it could be used by a criminal to make money. Likely for a reason, it's the ability to think like a criminal which is largely missing & where people do have that ability many times they are treated by their cyber security peers as a bit suspect.

Re: Do you have the brains for cybersecurity?

#14

Post by 0x4a42 »

massemphasis wrote: post #7
tshadwell wrote: post #6

What area of 'cybersecurity' would I be finding myself breaking substitution ciphers based on wingdings in? I work in the information security industry, and I feel like I'm missing something but I really have to ask what these are relevant to. Cryptography, which this appears to be a reduced form of is mostly tangential and very nuanced relative to the ciphers in this challenge. I often feel my line of work is grossl…

I think this is geared for kids, and not really adults.

Yes, as the title says it's "cybersecurity", not infosec. :)

Re: Do you have the brains for cybersecurity?

#15

Post by besselheim »

tshadwell wrote: post #6

What area of 'cybersecurity' would I be finding myself breaking substitution ciphers based on wingdings in? I work in the information security industry, and I feel like I'm missing something but I really have to ask what these are relevant to. Cryptography, which this appears to be a reduced form of is mostly tangential and very nuanced relative to the ciphers in this challenge. I often feel my line of work is grossl…

It's more a rough aptitude test for creative problem-solving and persistence than anything else. Of course you need the strong technical background as well. But enjoying these sort of puzzles can be an indicator of sorts. I also work in cybersecurity, and most of my colleagues and I get a kick out of these sort of challenges.

Re: Do you have the brains for cybersecurity?

#18

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

I wasn't aware I had to explain how the crypto works in order to advise my clients that they should be disabling outdated SSL versions on their servers and returing RC4 ciphers.

Evidently I don't have the brains for cybersecurity. My clients should be just fine with their telnet-enabled/remote-root-accessible servers until someone who can descramble Wingdings riddles can save them.

Re: Do you have the brains for cybersecurity?

#19

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

massemphasis wrote: post #7
tshadwell wrote: post #6

What area of 'cybersecurity' would I be finding myself breaking substitution ciphers based on wingdings in? I work in the information security industry, and I feel like I'm missing something but I really have to ask what these are relevant to. Cryptography, which this appears to be a reduced form of is mostly tangential and very nuanced relative to the ciphers in this challenge. I often feel my line of work is grossl…

I think this is geared for kids, and not really adults.

It's a recruiting exercise for various companies.

Apparently it's a serious recruiting exercise for various companies - which is frankly terrifying for anyone who knows anything about infosec but isn't a cybercriminal, terrorist, or foreign hostile.

Re: Do you have the brains for cybersecurity?

#20

Post by ecma »

AndyMcConachie wrote: post #17

This is probably a recruitment operation. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I think that's what this is.

"They range in difficulty from simple to knotty and fiendish. We will let you know the answers next week."

It's not a recruitment operation. They're just some fun puzzles which are accessible to laypeople. It shows the fundamentals of cryptanalysis in a way that a casual reader can understand and even have a crack at solving.

Someone mentioned in another comment that Simon Singh's "The Code Book" starts in a similar way and they're dead on. You don't introduce someone to a subject by posing problems based on constructs they don't yet have the tools or context understand. The history of the field informs its current state - cryptography and cryptanalysis have a very rich and fascinating history.

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