Hello friends this is the step by step guidance to work on task these are not the questions don’t be panic ./
● NCP- NICE Challenge Project
● VM- Virtual Machine
● VMRC- Virtual Machine Remote Console
❖ NICE Framework- This is shorthand for the NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework.
❖ Webportal- The web application at which is where NCP
users log in to interact with NCP content and services.
❖ Player- A NCP user which performs challenges; often a student.
❖ Curator- A NCP user which adds players, creates assignments, and reviews challenge
attempts; often a professor.
❖ Environment- A defined set of VM images, configurations, and extended context. It is
designed to create a realistic set of systems, networks, and users which support a fictitious
organization with a defined purpose.
❖ Challenge- A defined scenario, based on a NICE Framework T ask from the perspective of a
NICE Framework Work Role. Often includes a business scenario, meeting chat, and checks.
Each challenge is designed to work within a specific environment.
❖ Workspace- A live environment assigned to a user for the purpose of attempting challenges.
❖ Assignment- A time window, defined by a Curator, in which a set of users may schedule
workspaces or have workspaces scheduled for them for the purpose of performing challenges.
❖ Check- A monitored state, condition, or event within a challenge usually correlated with a
challenge objective.● Accessing an Active Workspace
○ Workspaces become available to players at approximately 3:00 AM (Pacific Time) on their
designated start date. Once a workspace is available, players will see a button labeled “Open
Workspace”
, which they can click on to continue onto challenge selection and deployment.
Workspaces expire at 11:59 PM (Pacific Time) on their designated end date, at which point any
challenge attempts in progress will be submitted automatically.
● Scheduling a Workspace
○ Players must be added to a Player-Scheduled Assignment before they may schedule a
workspace for themselves. Alternatively, players may have workspaces scheduled for them by
their curator. If a player has an assignment that is pending workspace scheduling, the words
“Not Scheduled” will appear in red under the assignments “Workspace Start Date” and
“Workspace End Date” columns. Selecting the green button labeled “Schedule Workspace” will
navigate them to the Workspace Scheduling page.
○ During assignment creation, curators specify a date range within which they will allow players to
schedule workspaces for themselves. This date range is referred to as the Assignment Phase.
On the Workspace Scheduling page, players are prompted to select a date range within the
Assignment Phase during which they would like to gain access to a workspace.
Starting a Challenge Using the Webportal
● Selecting a Challenge
○ Once inside of an active workspace for the first time, players are presented with a sortable list of
available challenges with two available action buttons. The “View” button displays expanded
challenge information and the “Deploy” button will deploy that challenge onto the current
workspace.
○ This list is organized by a variety of useful information including the following…
■ Type- At this time there are 3 different types of challenges. T echnical, which is a
challenge where the player generally needs to alter (i.e. install/update software, fix
issues, etc) the VMs within the environment in order to reach a desired end state.
Hybrid, which is a challenge where the player observes and analyzes the state of the
VMs within the environment and writes a report/policy as the primary deliverable. Threat
Sandbox, where the player is educated about a recent threat and encouraged to
experiment with it in the environment.
■ Work Role- This field comes directly from the NICE Framework and is what the
challenge is mapped to/designed from in terms of content.
■ Challenge Title- The challenge’s name.
■ Difficulty- The relative difficulty of the challenge.
■ Time- The relative time it should take to complete the challenge.
4■ OS (Operating System)- The main operating system used to complete the challenge.
This does not, however, mean that the challenge is limited to that operating system
completely.
● Understanding Challenge Details
○ When reviewing challenges, the top level (what is displayed in the list) information is only to help
players find what they are looking for, in general. More important details can be found below this
layer, they become visible once the “View” action is used. The various sections under the
“Challenge Details” tab are listed and explained below…
■ Framework Category, Task/Challenge Number, Specialty Area, Work Role, & Task
Description- These fields come directly from the NICE Framework and are what the
challenge is mapped to/designed from in terms of content.
■ Scenario- A brief business scenario written to give a realistic take on how this challenge
could manifest using real world context.
■ Additional Information- Extra information that will aid in the completion of a challenge.
Often this section includes important details that are required to complete a challenge
properly.
● Understating Known Issues
○ The tab labeled “Known Issues” can be clicked to reveal information about known issues related
to the selected challenge. This section will display a detailed description of the issue along with
any known workarounds and the potential impact the issue may pose to the challenge
submission report.
● Challenge Deployment
○ Challenge deployment, on average, takes between 5-10 minutes once the deployment request leaves the queue. However, some challenges take longer to deploy than others. In the cases that the challenge will take longer than 10 minutes to deploy the average deployment time is
listed in the “Additional Information” section of the “Challenge Details” tab.
○ After clicking “Deploy”
, players will be presented with the Meeting Chat interface. During this
phase, players will witness a meeting take place among fictitious colleagues which will provide
valuable details regarding the tasks at hand.
○ Once the challenge has finished deploying, the progress bar at the bottom of the screen will be replaced by a button that reads “Begin Challenge”
Known Issues Reminder
○ Players will be reminded of any known issues related to any particular challenge once the meeting has concluded.
Details of the known issue, along with workarounds and potential impact on checks, will be listed in a gray chat bubble sent from the NICE Challenge Dev T eam.
● Returning to Challenge Selection After Deployment
○ If players wish to select/deploy a new challenge they will need to end the current challenge
attempt. This can be done by selecting the “Documentation” tab within the active workspace,
providing written documentation, and using the green button labeled “Submit Challenge
Attempt” located on the top right of the screen.
■ Important Submission Note- If players start any challenge and need/want to end the
challenge attempt, that challenge attempt will be recorded. All challenge attempts are
recorded and sent to the curator for assessment as submissions.
Performing a Challenge Using the Webportal
● Gathering Information from Meeting Chat on the Webportal
○ Once a challenge has started to deploy onto an active workspace the Meeting Chat animation
will display VERY important information, often CRITICAL to the completion of the challenge.
After the meeting animation has concluded, this information can be reviewed by selecting the
“Meeting Notes” tab. Players should review all of these communications carefully at the
beginning of each challenge.
● Understanding & Tracking Checks on the Webportal
○ After reviewing the challenge’s meeting chat, the second thing a player should review are the
challenge’s checks. T echnical challenges often have many checks, Hybrid challenges often
have none, and Threat Sandboxes often have one which is used to indicate if the threat is still
active or not. There are multiple fields in the check section that have the following types of data
in them…
■ Status- This field will show either a red (denoting an incomplete objective), yellow
(denoting an obstructed check), a green (denoting a complete objective), and a grey
? (denoting an unchecked objective).
■ Check Description- This field displays text related to the check, usually a brief
description of what the check is looking for.
■ Status Info- This field will show extended status information relating to a check’s status.
■ Last Changed- This field shows the last time the check status changed. This is not to
be confused with when a check was last run. Checks generally run every 60 seconds
unless otherwise stated in the check description.
○ When doing a technical challenge the main objective is reached when all the checks are
reporting back a green in the status field . be confused with when a check was last run. Checks generally run every 60 seconds
unless otherwise stated in the check description.○ When doing a technical challenge the main objective is reached when all the checks are
reporting back a green in the status field.
● Consoling into VMs & Login Details
○ Having reviewed the meeting chat for context and the checks that need to be satisfied, it is
finally time to get into the VMs. Using the context and the network map, the player should be
able to identify what VMs need to be consoled into. If working on a technical challenge, the
player will likely need to make changes to these VMs within the workspace. When doing a
hybrid challenge, however, they often need only observe specified information within.
○ Machine/Service/Application Logins within the environment should always be the same unless
the challenge, under the additional information field or meeting chat, states otherwise. The
normal login credentials are the following…
■ Username/Login: playerone
■ Password: password123
Submitting a Challenge Using the Webportal
● Writing Documentation & Drafts
○ While completing the challenge, or at the end of the challenge, players need to document their
challenge solution. The player should format their documentation as professionally as possible
and document with as much detail as they feel is needed to clearly explain their solution.
○ Player documentation is automatically saved whenever the WebPortal detects changes to the
text area. This is so that if the player loses their internet connection or accidentally browses
away from the portal they will not lose their documentation while the challenge is still in
progress. A message will display below the text area whenever the WebPortal is in the process
of saving documentation.
● Adding Software/Utilities/Coding Languages to the Tools Used List
○ Along with documenting their solution to the challenge players will need to tag software
applications, operating system utilities, and coding languages utilized in their solution in the
tools used list. However, coding languages need only be added when the player uses a coding
language to write a script or program to aid in their completion of a challenge.
● Final Submission & Ending the Challenge Attempt
○ Once the player is satisfied with their challenge attempt, has documented their solution, and has
added their tools used it is time to end the challenge attempt. This is done by clicking the
“Submit Challenge Attempt” button located on the top right of the page. Do NOT hit this button
until COMPLETELY DONE. A player CANNOT take the submission back or edit it once it is
submitted. This will end the challenge attempt and send the results to the curator.
Viewing Challenge Submissions
● Navigating to the Submissions Page
○ Upon successfully logging in to the Webportal, players may navigate to the Submissions page
by clicking on the “Submissions” link in the navbar. By default, challenge submissions will be
sorted by date of submission.
● Reviewing Challenge Attempts
○ Challenge submissions are listed in the table located in the upper half of the page. The table
can be sorted by clicking on the table header corresponding to the criteria by which you wish to
sort (assignment, timestamp, etc.). Challenge submissions that have been reviewed by the
curator will display a checkmark in the column labeled “Reviewed”
.
● Viewing Challenge Attempt Details
○ Clicking the green button labeled “View” on any row will populate the Submission Review view,
located below, with details corresponding to that particular challenge submission.
● Understanding the Challenge Attempt View
○ The challenge attempt view includes submission details such as:
■ Title
■ Complexity
■ Attempt Duration
13■ Check Status
■ T ools Used
■ Submitted Documentation
■ Submission Feedback
○ Each challenge consists of a series of checks that players must satisfy in order to complete it.
These checks, along with their descriptions, are listed in the section labeled “Final Check
Details”
.
○ An overall assessment of the player’s attempt to satisfy the challenge checks can be found
under the section labeled “Full Check Pass”
.
○ Players are asked to provide a list of any tools used during their challenge attempt. This list is
displayed in the section labeled “T ools Used”
.
○ Most challenges prompt the player to submit some sort of written documentation detailing how
they arrived at a solution. This documentation will be displayed in the section labeled “Submitted Documentation.
# Please make sure about NICE XpCyberRange is known for you to accept the order/
# “This is the step by step guide for the assignment to complete the task.” The task will be done on direct portal of NICe I tell remaining details on chat .Once the order is accepted#
