Take the Challenge
2024 Challenge: Operation PACKET STORM
Try our 2024 graduate software engineering challenge - Operation Packet Storm.
Deadline:
26th August 2024
Software Engineering
Got a solution you want to share?
This challenge has finished, but we’d still love to see solutions – or try our other challenges.
A critical situation has emerged, and we’re calling on the brightest technical minds to assist. We’ve intercepted a massive data dump – 1,000,000 packets of potentially hostile network traffic. Time is of the essence, and we need your expertise to rapidly process and analyse this data before it’s too late.
Your mission is to develop a high-speed program in C, C++ or Rust to process the intercepted 1,000,000 packet capture (.pcap) file. Your analysis could be the key to preventing a major cyber attack on our nation’s infrastructure.
You will be required to provide:
- A link to your submission, hosted on a public service such as Github, including build instructions
- Any additional insights or anomalies detected during your analysis.
Required Intelligence
Our security hangs in the balance, and every second counts. Our analysts need to know:
- The average packet size, and the total volume of data received during the attack
- Destination IPs ranked by frequency, in order to identify primary targets
- The number of packets sent with different transport layer protocols, to understand what mitigations would be most effective
You’ll need to make sure our operational support team can build your solution and verify your results, in order to gauge its operational suitability. Including documentation on expected usage and build instructions is a must.
Terms and conditions
- All submissions must be hosted using a public code-hosting service
- All submissions must be hosted using a public code-hosting service such as Github, and submitted using the submission form.
- All submissions must include a detailed README for building and verifying your solution
- All submissions must build for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
AI/LLM statement
At CoreTech we appreciate that LLMs have become a de facto tool for iterating on software designs. To that end, using an LLM to assist you in understanding your solution, in soliciting immediate feedback on approach, and in understanding language features in a greater detail, is permissible.
You will, however, be asked to explain your reasoning for using various constructs, language features and tools at interview, so ensure you understand what you’re using!
Do you have an endless curiosity for technology?
Get ready to work with some of the most brilliant minds who care more about solving problems than climbing hierarchies.
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