Date of Award

6-2021

Degree Name

MS in Computer Science

Department/Program

Computer Science

College

College of Engineering

Advisor

Bruce Debruhl

Advisor Department

Computer Science

Advisor College

College of Engineering

Abstract

Capture the Flag (CTF) is a common and popular type of event in the cyber security space with audiences ranging from large security conference participants to even those in middle or high school. Event participants bring their favorite set of tools and any level of knowledge they have to compete against other teams in solving cyber security related challenges. These types of challenges can range anywhere from reverse engineering programs and hacking WiFi to utilizing interesting command line commands and messing with browser developer consoles. There are plenty of general CTF events that happen throughout every month, as well as plenty of resources for those. However, CTFs focused on wireless technologies are not as prevalent. Just this last year a Wireless themed CTF, named Wireless CTF (WCTF), became publicly available to participate in. With this CTF as the target, a tool set will be put together in this thesis to help introduce some of WCTF's topics: WiFi penetration testing, POCSAG radio signal decoding, and Morse Code Signal Decoding. Tools will be chosen based on the BEAR scoring rubric, created in this thesis, to assess a given tools usability, and chosen tools will be used against challenge topics found in WCTF to test the validity of the scoring rubric and evaluate changes in a participants knowledge of each topic.

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