SEC 340 Operation Stop Hack: Hidden Messages Operation Stop Hack: Hidden Messages Due Week 9 and worth 25 points The specific course learning outcomes as

SEC 340 Operation Stop Hack: Hidden Messages Operation Stop Hack: Hidden Messages

Due Week 9 and worth 25 points

The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:

Use forensic software to perform forensic tasks
Use technology and information resources to research issues in computer forensics.

The answers become a chain of communication. Download and submit this worksheet for credit.

List the answers to all 5 ciphers, numbered 1 – 5.
Each answer is worth 5 points.

The FBI recently found some hidden files and messages on the hard drive of the hacker from Operation Stop Hack. They are enlisting your help to determine the content of these hidden messages. They want you to have the following Intel to help with your investigation:

INTEL

It appears as if the criminals were using cipher techniques to communicate with their other members about targets and operations. We found message that appear to be encoded using various number bases, substitution and ciphers.
We think the following web tools will help in your investigation:

Rapid Tables: http://www.rapidtables.com/convert/number/ascii-hex-bin-dec-converter.htm

Rumkin Ciphers: http://rumkin.com/tools/cipher/

Number bases; include base2 (binary), base10 (decimal) and base64.

Binary is represented by 2 numbers ones (1) and zero (0), hence the base2, which means that base 10 would be represented by 10 numbers. 0 – 9 (always start with zero)

We were able to figure out the first message which was encoded using binary:

01001101 01100101 01100101 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110011 01100101 01110100 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 00110001 01110000 01101101 00100000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01001000 01101111 01110100 01000100 01101111 01100111 00100000 01010011 01101000 01100001 01100011 01101011

We determined that the first message to read: Meeting set for 1pm at the HotDog Shack
We used the Rapid Table converter to figure the meaning of this code. The binary was copied into the text box that reads binary and the text answer is shown in the box labeled ASCII.

We have tried to evaluate each message to determine the type of cipher, now we ask that you finish the task and crack the codes. Please return them to us quickly in case they can help capture other members.

This message appears to be encoded using hexadecimal:

Ox 57 65 20 6E 65 65 64 20 74 6F 20 6D 65 65 74 2C 20 74 68 65 20 70 6F 6C 69 63 65 20 61 72 65 20 62 65 63 6F 6D 69 6E 67 20 73 75 73 70 69 63 69 6F 75 73

The next message appears to be base64:

U3RvcCB3b3JyeWluZywgdGhlIGpvYiBpcyBhbG1vc3QgZG9uZSBhbmQgeW91IHdpbGwgZ2V0IGEgbGFyZ2UgcGF5b3V0

The next missive appears to be encoded using ROT13, so we suggest using the Rumkin Tools:

Jung’f gur arkg wbo?

This email was found and it appears to be Atbash:

Dv ziv tlrmt gl szxp gsv hsrkbziw hl dv xzm ivwrivxg z hsrknvmg lu wrznlmwh

The FBI are stumped, a double cipher was used to encode a message. It looks like hexadecimal, but the ASCII text does not look like English. They also found the passphrase: secret. The message appears to be a sort of polyalphabetic substitution.
Determine what cipher is considered a polyalphabetic substitution cipher:

Ox 4C 6C 67 20 72 78 6D 73 67 6D 20 6E 6D 65 64 20 78 63 62 69 20 69 64 65 65 76 20 73 67 20 58 76 6B 75 65 72 20 45 65 61 20 39 6B 6C 20 78 70 65 65 6B 70 72 20 73 78 20 31 30 63 64 2E 20 43 68 6D 20 61 6B 63 70 20 6D 73 6F 67 20 6B 6C 78 61 76 20 67 64 65 62 64 20 77 61 6A 78 78 65 20 68 71 6E 72 2C 20 70 7A 6D 6E 76 20 4D 20 62 66 6E 67 74 78 20 6D 7A 69 20 75 70 77 6D 77 71 20 79 7A 78 61 20 73 20 67 71 75 69 20 6D 7A 65 76 20 6E 6D 65 64 20 76 67 69 73 6E 6C 69 20 76 79 69 20 6C 7A 6D 72 64 69 67 6C 2E