Justifiable Paranoia

I created an NCAA basketball tournament bracket contest on Yahoo for members of the information security community. The winner gets bragging rights until next year (@rogueclown, your reign is almost up!), as well as a yet-to-be-determined prize (still owed to the very patient @rogueclown for her 2011 victory). The scoring format is a traditional 1/2/4/8/16/32 format with a twist – a bonus equal to the difference in seeds for each game in which you pick a lower-seeded winner.

To participate:

1. Go to the tournament page.
2. After logging, click “Join Group”.
3. Enter Group ID 178984.
4. Enter the password.

Since you’re a member of the information security community, I can’t just give you the password, right? You’ll have to guess it. It consists of lower case letters and numbers, with no spaces…and all 4 parts of the passwords are information security related.

1. Part 1 – Short name of widely used app currently being targeted in 0-day attacks (also first name of Sci-Fi comic strip hero with last name “Gordon”)
2. Part 2 – Worm that targeted Siemens SCADA systems in Iran
3. Part 3 – Last name of former employee of HBGary Federal who isn’t all that anonymous (see what I did there!?)
4. Part 4 – The number of minutes it takes LIGATT to train anyone to be a computer hacker

In case you’re still scratching your head…and are willing to admit it, DM me on Twitter…or send me smoke signals and I’ll tell you the password.

Your final picks must be submitted by the scheduled tip-off time of the first game in the tournament on Thursday, March 17 (the 4 play-in games on March 15 and March 16 aren’t part of the contest).

The fine print:

And did I mention you have to be a member of the information security community to enter? To be eligible to win, I must be able to verify that you’re a member of the information security community. No more than 1 entry per person. Compromising the commissioner’s computer, compromising the commissioner’s account and exploiting vulnerabilities in Yahoo to do anything to affect the outcome of the contest are strictly prohibited.