DEFCON 31 Activities

Come try your hand at flying our immersive Airbus A320 simulator and see if you can stick our landing challenge! We'll also be talking about electronic flight bags, how their data integrity is relied upon by pilots to assist with a safe landing, and demonstrate the impacts in a safe environment.

We have added a special feature to this year’s activities during DEF CON 31. This will be on Friday and Saturday from 11AM - 5PM.

Our friends at AIAA are helping us host “Ask Me Anything” sessions on Friday and Saturday. It’s an opportunity to meet Aerospace Village members and partners who are experts in the field. Bring your questions about getting into cybersecurity, aviation, space, likes/dislikes, you name it!

• A chance to ask all your questions, get their perspective, and hear some great stories.
• A low-key sharing of experiences and a way to make new friends without having to make small talk.
• Note: This is NOT a recruiting activity. Ask career questions if you have them, but think of this more as a chance for general "speed mentoring."

IG Labs will be bringing our Runway Lighting System in a box as part of our Hack The Airport CTF. Participants will be able to attempt to get hands on with practical OT and IT cyber security environment in a mobile converged environment with real-world hardware and protocols.

Discover the exciting world of cybersecurity and unmanned aerial systems (UAS)! Learn how to safeguard UAS from all angles with a comprehensive platform security perspective.

Engage in some fun and challenging CTF adventures where you can put your skills to the test. See firsthand how your actions affect our UAS demonstrator. The UAS demonstrator contains all the sensors from our Mobile Optical Ultrasonic Sensor Explorer, or MOUSE for short. The MOUSE represents a small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS) comprising a pan/tilt object recognition camera, navigation camera, temperature & humidity sensor, ultrasonic sensor, and drive system powering four motors.

You won't need to worry about any complicated registration process; all you need is your personal laptop to join in the excitement. Earn enough points in the challenge, and you could be the proud owner of a CT Cubed SAO, a special prize while supplies last. Get ready to embark on this fascinating journey and prove your cybersecurity prowess!

This is your chance to demonstrate your superior aviation hacking knowledge and skills. This contest requires you to keep your eyes open in the Aerospace Village, a personal device to access the contest webpage, and various other technical skills that are useful in the Aerospace industry. A laptop will be helpful for binary analysis and packet decoding. The final flag is an RF replay attack, so you will need to bring or borrow a device capable of rebroadcasting a signal. If you get stuck on any the challenges help can likely be found in some of the other villages. No pre-registration is required and it is OK to work in teams. The first to finish will receive a 1/48 scale model of an F-35B as well as the prestige of being the first ever winner of this challenging contest. A second model will be awarded based on a random drawing of all other people who successfully solve the final flag. The Aerospace Village CTF starts when the village opens on Friday and ends when the village closes Sunday at 2.

A variety of aviation infrastructure have been compromised. Immerse yourself into challenges where you are tasked with identifying attacks/attackers, stopping attacks, and restoring normal operations. As a participant your first step is to register ahead and read the rules at: https://aisac.cyberskyline.com/events/aisac-defcon and bring your own laptop to the venue. You can participate in the virtual challenges from Friday, but the more critical in-person challenges are only available at certain times during Village open hours!

Bricks in the Air is a hands-on demo to teach the basics of low level protocols seen in aviation. The demo uses the I2C protocol and does not reveal actual security vulnerabilities in avionics or other systems in aviation. The attendees are not required to have any prerequisite knowledge. No equipment is needed for attendees.

Hack-A-Sat 4 is quite simply the world's first CTF in space. Now in its 4th year, the Hack-A-Sat competition series aims to enable security researchers of all levels to focus their skills and creativity on solving cyber security challenges on space systems and incentivize innovation in securing these systems. Stop by and witness the 5 finalist teams compete for $100K in prizes, learn more about the history of Hack-A-Sat, and the Moonlighter satellite hosting this year's competition. Competition updates will be presented on the AV stage both Friday and Saturday morning at 11 am PT, culminating with the HAS4 Award Ceremony on Sunday at 12 pm PT.

Boeing will be hosting an ARINC 615a dataload CTF broken into two major modules. The first module will focus on decomposing and analyzing a PCAP capture of a simulated dataload between an airplane dataload server and an avionics component. The second module will allow participants to execute a dataload against simulated avionics to help improve understanding and awareness of how software is loaded onto airplanes. Additionally, Boeing is aiming to increase its cyber outreach into the STEM community by offering an additional challenge centered on an operational system and the impact of that system on the overall airplane. The challenge will walk participants through how the operational system functions, how it can be negatively impacted, the results of tampering with the system while it’s in flight, and how the system can secured via CIA and PKI.