CGC: The Analysis

An in-depth, post-game look at the CGC Final Event competition data, providing expert analysis of the complex gameplay executed by the novel autonomous cyber reasoning systems that competed in the Challenge.

Final Event Program

DARPA's Cyber Grand Challenge Final Event took place August 4, 2016, at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel and Conference Center. Seven computers developed by teams of hackers played the world's first-ever all-machine game of Capture the Flag.

Highlight Reel - Part 1

Early highlights from the world's first all-machine hacking tournament, DARPA's Cyber Grand Challenge (CGC). This computer security competition featured seven High Performance Computers as competitors.

Highlight Reel - Part 2

On August 4, 2016, seven high-performance computers successfully played a game of Capture the Flag during the Final Event of DARPA's Cyber Grand Challenge.

CGC Stage

DARPA's liquid-cooled data center, the "arena" for the Cyber Grand Challenge, was built in only 29 hours. The stage is home to seven teams' Cyber Reasoning Systems.

Setting the Stage

The liquid-cooled data center for DARPA's Cyber Grand Challenge is live! It was built, along with much of the rest of the Challenge set, in 29 hours. Watch the time lapse as the stage is set for this game of Capture the Flag.

What is Capture the Flag?

"Capture the Flag" is a game played by both children and hackers. But whereas children look for flags hidden in their opponents' forts, hackers look for software flaws hidden in previously unexplored code.

Visualization Overview

A challenge within a challenge.. DARPA developers describe the difficulty of creating a first-of-its-kind visualization program to explain what's happening to data in real time as the game of Capture the Flag is being played.

Leaderboard View

The Scoreboard view tracks the total cumulative scores for the game. CRSs are ordered from first place on top to last on the bottom. Bars extending to the right compare total cumulative scores.

Proving Vulnerabilities

Each CRS evaluates its competition's defenses and attempts to prove weaknesses in those defenses by initiating a Proof of Vulnerability.

Scoreboard Explained

In Arena view, each CRS has a color-coordinated card. Each CRS card shows the status of software services on a defended host. Each network service or Challenge Set (CS) is represented by a hex tile on each card.

Arena View

Arena view illustrates everything that happens in a round of CGC play. All network traffic flows from the black network hub to the Cyber Reasoning System (CRS) cards, including friendly service polls and competitor Proof of Vulnerabilities.

Scoring

During DARPA's Cyber Grand Challenge three tasks must be performed by the players to win. Players must protect their digital flags from opponents with proactive actions.

Filament View

Filament view traces the execution of software over a given input over time, moving from left to right. For example, a trace of an email client processing an email. The program begins executing on the left and time flows to the right.

Software Evolution

Brian Caswell, part of the CGC Competition Framework Team, explains his hope that software for autonomous cyber defense will learn from other systems' patches and weaknesses to get continuously better at patching software.

Consensus Evaluation

Chris Eagle, of the CGC Competition Framework Team, explains how the unprecedented transparency of this game of Capture the Flag gives the teams' Cyber Reasoning Systems a chance to learn from the others on the fly.

Referee's Mission

Holt Sorenson, a referee for the Cyber Grand Challenge, explains the role of him and his fellow refs in ensuring the systems are healthy and the game runs smoothly.

Unrevealed Software

Jason Wright, part of the Cyber Grand Challenge's Competition Framework Team, explains how the Cyber Reasoning Systems will encounter new software that has never previously been explored.

Integrity

Mike Thompson, a member of the Cyber Grand Challenge's Competition Framework Team, describes the need for a scalable forensics system he built for the CGC to verify that software is compatible with the game infrastructure.

Prototype Integration

Tim Vidas, a member of the Cyber Grand Challenge's Competition Framework Team, describes the challenge of integrating numerous new pieces of technology to pull off the CGC.

Scale of the Challenge

Sean O'Brien, the head of logistics for the Cyber Grand Challenge, walks through the extreme logistical and technical hurdles that were crossed to create the CGC experience and build a liquid-cooled data center within an air gap.

Competition Framework Team

Astrophysicist and Cyber Grand Challenge Host Hakeem Oluseyi talks to the CGC's Competition Framework Team about their role in designing the space in which the CGC is executed and scored.

Mission and Objectives

The ultimate test of wits in computer security occurs through open competition on the global Capture the Flag (CTF) tournament circuit. In CTF contests, experts probe for weaknesses and search for deeply hidden flaws.

Welcome to DARPA's Cyber Grand Challenge

The ultimate test of wits in computer security occurs through open competition on the global Capture the Flag (CTF) tournament circuit. In CTF contests, experts probe for weaknesses, search for deeply hidden flaws.