TODAY'S CHALLENGE: THE MONA LISA · The Black Widow Community

TODAY'S CHALLENGE: THE MONA LISA

Hello Black Widow Community.

Some of our previous challenges we’re hard to solve, so I thought I would go easy this time round and give you scenario based questions.

The challenge starts below this line of text.

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The midnight air is thick with the hum of server fans in your windowless office. You’ve been tracking a threat actor known only as "The Architect" a ghost on the dark web suspected of orchestrating a string of high-profile data breaches.

You have nothing but a wall of dead-ends.

There is no text. No malicious code. No suspects. Just a single, innocent-looking JPEG file of the Mona Lisa, something that looks like it was taken off of Google.

You suspect it’s a decoy, but your gut tells you otherwise.

You run a hexadecimal analysis on the file structure and notice the metadata contains strings of characters that don't belong in a standard image header.

Suddenly, the screen flickers.

You aren't looking at the Mona Lisa anymore. The values shift, the pixels realign, and a string of clear-text coordinates and cryptographic keys spill across your terminal.

You found another clue.

In the world of cybersecurity and digital forensics, what is this process of concealing information within text and images called?

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This is easy, but as always.

Goodluck

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TODAY'S CHALLENGE: THE MONA LISA