Impelix Spends a Fun Day at the Toledo Tech Loft Doing Purple Team Exercises with Toledo’s Security Community
On Thursday, October 24th, as part of Cybersecurity Awareness Month, members of Toledo’s Cyber community came together to test their skills attacking and defending a simulated three tier network including internal corporate, semi-exposed DMZ, and third-party (supply chain) resources.
The event was hosted by Chris Eischen at the Toledo Tech Loft and co-sponsored by Impelix and Cybercom SI.
Red Teamers were treated to a maze of interconnected networks, endpoints in various stages of exploitability, and a few tantalizing clues that would lead them to the hidden flags and ultimate glory! (OK, maybe not “Ultimate Glory”, but a pretty sweet Yeti cooler). There was a strong turnout including mix of industry professionals, showing off some advanced knowledge and local students who are actively building their cybersecurity skills. But regardless of their backgrounds, everybody showed up, ready to play and have a good time.
The attackers were given 3 hours to scan, probe and exploit the network, using any tools they like, and leveraging their considerable knowledge of attack surfaces and exploitable attack vectors. And they went to work eagerly, to capture as many hidden flags as they could find.
But in an interesting twist, the Blue Team was composed completely of software. Impelix let their AI-driven IMPACT™ SecOps Platform detect the attackers’ behavior without any human guidance or intervention. The IMPACT platform stitched together data from multiple sources like Crowdstrike Falcon, Palo Alto Firewall, Suricata IDS and Windows Event Logs into a single, complete story, showing exactly who was doing what in the lab.
With some great local food brought in for lunch, and an afternoon of hardcore geekery, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and more importantly, learn a thing or two.
The three contestants that captured the most flags were Tyler Newell (aka “Sasquatch”), Jalal Abdel Halim, and Chand Haryani (aka “moon5”). Congrats to the winners and a huge thank you to the Toledo Tech Community for welcoming us and attending this event!
As timing worked out, this event happened to fall on the day of Toledo Tech Loft’s monthly LOFTalk. So Impelix’s Founder and CTO, Thomas Whang was able to speak to the assembled group about a range of topics including breaking into cybersecurity, entrepreneurship, the threats and benefits of AI, among others. The entire presentation can be viewed below.
A huge thank you to Jacob Squire and Nick Consolo from Cybercom SI. This event would not have been possible without their effort and dedication.
