October 1, 2021
Developed by the National Security AgencyCodebreaker Challenge offers students in US-based academic institutions the opportunity to develop their reverse-engineering / low-level code analysis skills while working on a realistic problem set in an NSA mission-centric scenario. The 2021 Codebreaker Challenge consists of a series of tasks worth a varying amount of points based on their difficulty. Schools will be ranked according to the total number of points accumulated by their students. Solutions may be submitted at any time for the duration of the challenge. Although not required, the NSA recommends that participants solve the tasks in order since they flow with a storyline. Also, later tasks may rely on artifacts or inputs from earlier tasks. While the challenge is intended for students, teachers are encouraged to participate as well. The site was designed to make it easy for teachers to incorporate the challenge into their courses. The Codebreaker Challenge is open until December 31, 2021.
Plus: The NSA website offers helpful resources to get students on the right track with the 2021 Codebreaker Challenge. Among the resources are reverse-engineering lectures and practice problems from the NSA Capstone Course.