A scenario in CYBER RANGES refers to an emulated lab exercises that span from skill development and competency assessment to threat emulation. The structure of the scenario will often contain the below pages/tabs:
- Overview/Briefing/Mission: this is a detailed guide on what are the expectations and actions the user will undertake while going through the content.
- Questions/Assessment: A series of tasks the user will be tasked to complete (not all scenarios have an assessment).
- Servers: A series of resources/virtual machines provisioned to aid the end user in completing the objectives outlined in the mission area (not all scenarios have the servers section)
- Other pages/tabs will be present depending on the user’s role, assessment, and scenario type.
Starting a Scenario
Once you have settled on a scenario you would like to play, click the VIEW MORE button:
On clicking, the select scenario menu shall open as shown:
Here you can see details about the scenario including its mode, type, difficulty, duration, and a scenario description (what the scenario is about).
Before playing any scenario, it is important to take note of the Duration: this is the runtime of the scenario.
Scenario Modes
Scenarios under the library can be played either in Single Slayer or Multiplayer Mode. By default, when we click on START, the scenario will be loaded in Single Player mode. If you wish to open the scenario in Multiplayer mode, click on the drop-down icon to select that option:
Boot/Loading the scenario
For the rest of this section, we shall be focusing on playing a single player scenario. To play the scenario in single player mode, click the START button. Alternatively, you can click on the dropdown on the start button and click on single player.
On clicking START, the scenario will start booting/loading:
The scenario load up process revolves around creating and provisioning the necessary virtual environment, as such, each scenario will have a unique loading time, which will be indicated by the status bar during the loading process.
While the scenario loads:
- Your VPN Status will be indicated on the top left.
- The loading status of the scenario will also be listed at the top middle of the screen.
Important note: You may experience the following error while tying to start a scenario:
You are currently not subscribed for 'Viewing Unix/Linux Files'. Maximum number of running scenarios reached, please terminate a scenario before continuing.
- A user is only allowed to play one scenario at a time. This issue occurs if you have another concurrent scenario running and one tries to start a scenario. To resolve, kindly terminate/finish any existing scenarios before attempting to start another.
Alternatively, as the scenarios loads, you can view the following:
1. Mission - this is a detailed guide on what the scenario is about and what you are expected to do.
Note: The mission section can still be accessed once the scenario is finished loading.
2. Rules - this is the code of ethics and details on how to access the VMs provisioned in the scenario.
3. Leaderboard - shows the performance of other players on that particular scenario.
When the scenario has fully loaded up, you can click the START button, and this will take you to the scenario content page, where you can play the scenario.
Note: Each scenario has a unique loading time.
Scenario Sections
Upon accessing the scenario, the following will be displayed:
The numbered areas are as follows:
- Overview - this is the first tab that is open whenever you play any scenario.
- Mission - under the overview tab is the mission section. This section is where details/steps on how to play the scenario are listed.
- Rules - code of ethics and video links are provided on how to access the range via VPN:
- Time Left - shows you the amount of time that that is left for you to finish the scenario.
- Score - for cyber challenge scenarios, a score icon is visible to show you, your overall score.
- VPN status - this will show you whether your VPN is connected.
- Cloud status - if the Cloud Stack faced an issue during loading, this icon will alert you of this.
Other key area s to check include:
Lab Access Guidelines - for every scenario that has virtual machines configured, there will be a guideline on how to access this virtual machines.
Credentials table - after reviewing the Lab Access Guideline, a table with the required credentials will be provided.
For Cyber Challenge scenarios, a Questions tab will be available. In this tab is where the assessment/questions will be provisioned:
Under the questions tab:
- Questions - you can view all the questions available for that scenario.
- Answer(s) field - depending on the type of answer that is expected, there will be either a text field that requires you to type/paste in the correct answer or use your mouse to select the best answer (multiple choice questions/answers).
- Question Score - the score points awarded for getting that particular question correctly.
- Question Penalty - the score points deducted for getting that particular question incorrectly.
- Attempts - for each question, there is a unique number of attempts that you are allowed to use up until that particular question is locked, or you get correctly.
- Submit Answer - after pasting/typing in or selecting your answer, click on SUBMIT ANSWER to have that answer be evaluated.
- Hide Answers - can be used to toggle the visibility of your answers.
- Navigate - you can use this pane to navigate through questions sequentially, or jump to the select question of your choice via the questions highlighted in 1.
★ Hints: Some assessments, and subsequent questions, may have hints. Usage of hints might result in a deduction of a given score point to unlock the hint.
Click on Servers if you would like to view as well as connect to any virtual machines associated with the scenario as follows:
In the servers section, the Virtual Machines associated with the scenario will be listed. For each scenario and Virtual Machines, the following can be performed:
1. Reset Environment - this will erase any changed you have made to all the Virtual Machines
⚠ During a lobby, you may not be allowed to reset the entire lab environment.
2. Manage a virtual machine - for each virtual machine, you can Restart or Reset them
3. Services - a list of services that are accessible to you are accessible in this section
Service types
The following are some of the services that can be configured on a given Virtual Machine for a scenario:
1. Web Console - refers to an RDP/VNC service configured on the virtual machine.
2. Web Shell - refers to SSH service configured on the virtual machine.
3. Web Proxy - refers to any Website service configure on the virtual machine
4. RDP - refers to RDP service configured on the virtual machine.
Depending on the services that have been configured on the different servers, clicking on the icon shown below, will load that service:
★ Note: A web proxy, web shell and RDP services, will provide access to websites/web UI, ssh and RDP right on the browser. All these services do not require you to connect via VPN.
Score
Click on Score to see your score and performance overall throughout the category of questions:
On the score section:
1. Overall Score - will list the total points you have attained and questions you have gotten correctly for each question.
2. Category Score - will showcase a pictorial of you score per question category.
3. Score graph - will showcase a graph showcasing your performance through the questions from the time you started the scenario to the times you attempted each questions.
4. Competences - Will showcase the competencies in % format with regards to accuracy and completion percentage.
Exiting a Scenario
At the bottom left of a running scenario, there is an exit button, as shown below. Click on it if you wish to exit the scenario before its duration has lapsed. Alternatively, you can click on the CYBER RANGES in the top left corner as shown below:
When you click on exit, you will get the prompt below that will ask if you would like to exit back to the dashboard or exit and terminate your scenario:
If you would like to come back and resume the scenario later, just exit to dashboard. Otherwise,
you can choose to exit and terminate the scenario if you are not planning to resume it.