Code-Breaking and Decoding
Having the ability to interpret and understand data even if it is presented in a different or unknown format is extremely important to conducting cyber security examinations and to the general understanding of cyber security. A coded message is simply a message that has been changed in some way so as to hide its meaning from prying eyes.
There are many different ways to write the same information. Below is a Lookup Table that shows decimal, hex, octal, and html encodings for characters. There are other ways to encode messages, such as binary or Base 64, but these will give a good idea of how encoding works.
The message “Let the games begin!” could be encoded as follows:
Dec: 76 101 116 32 116 104 101 32 103 97 109 101 115 32 98 101 103 105 110 33
Hx: 4C 65 74 20 74 68 65 20 67 61 6D 65 73 20 62 65 67 69 6E 21
Oct: 114 145 164 040 164 150 145 040 147 141 155 145 163 040 142 145 147 151 156 041
Html: L e t   t h e   g a m e s   b e g i n !
