Orange Vista Cyber ArcadeHome / For Teachers / Game 2
TEACHER INFO · GAME 2
DNS Quest 2: Hex Strikes Back
A harder follow-up. Students investigate a poisoned resolver, see the attack from the attacker’s side in a sandboxed simulator, then fix it.
At a glance
| Course | AP Cybersecurity, Unit 3: Securing Networks |
|---|---|
| Topic | DNS poisoning (topic 3.1.A) |
| When to use | A few days after Game 1, as review |
| Play time | About 30 to 35 minutes |
| Style | Less guided than Game 1. There is no arrow telling students where to go; the goal names a place, not the action. |
| Points | 30 for closing the case, plus Bonus Challenge extra credit (each student gets 6 questions from a bank of 10) |
| Turn in | The case file, which includes a verification code |
The three acts
- Investigate (defender). Use a help-desk terminal to compare what the school resolver says with what the site’s own name server says. Read an unlabeled cache board and flag the poisoned rows (one scary-looking row is a decoy). Then a three-scene lesson on why HTTPS did not save the victim: plain HTTP, a wrong certificate, and HSTS.
- Be Hex (attacker). Inside a sandboxed Red Team Simulator, after a Rules of Engagement screen on ethics and the CFAA. Forge a reply against a predictable resolver, then see why random transaction IDs and random source ports make the attack nearly impossible.
- Fix and clean up (defender). Flush the cache (and see why that alone is not a fix), turn on the four real defenses, then run the attack waves and watch each get blocked. Clean only the infected devices on the network map. Finish with an Incident Report.
Study mode (not scored)
- A toggle on the title screen. It adds a lesson before each of the 8 stages and a no-penalty quick check after each.
- Hints are free. The Bonus Challenge is locked. The report says NOT FOR GRADE.
- Study runs save separately from the Normal run, so using it never overwrites or penalizes a graded run.
Support built in
- Field Guide (F key): plain-English cards that unlock as the story needs them. They explain words, never which answer to pick.
- Every defense switch has a neutral “What it does” line.
After the case
Closing the case locks the graded run. Students can then roam Orange Vista for fun: ghost packets with networking facts, badges, gear and a small arcade game. None of it changes the score, XP or case file. It ends with a teaser for Game 3.