CSAT (USAF Cyber Test) case studies
CSAT (USAF Cyber Test) · Put your knowledge to work in context.
The CSAT (commonly called the USAF Cyber Test) is a computer-delivered, proctored assessment used in U.S. Air Force cyber accessions and placement to gauge a candidate's aptitude for technical cyber work. The CSAT (USAF Cyber Test) case studies are 5 cases and about 3,168 words.
1The 40 KB Cliff After the Tunnel Cutover
Site A (10.20.0.0/24, gateway 10.20.0.1) reaches an internal HTTPS server at 10.60.5.20 through a new IPsec tunnel whose MTU is 1400 bytes. Since the cutover, users can open the login page but any download larger than about 40 KB stalls and times out; plain HTTP to the same server still works normally.
597 words, about 3 min2df Says Full, du Says 12 GB
A Linux web server alerts at 03:12 that /var, a 50 GB volume, is 100% full. The on-call admin runs du -xsh /var/ and totals about 12 GB, while df -h /var still reports 50G used with 0 available.
656 words, about 3 min3One Attempt Per Account, 380 Accounts
A SIEM rule alerts on "5 or more failed logons for a single account within 5 minutes." Overnight, a single internal IP (10.20.44.9, the second-floor print server) made 1,140 failed authentications against a domain controller, spread across 380 distinct accounts at roughly one attempt each. The rule never fired.
621 words, about 3 min4Equal Blocks in the Badge Export
A contractor stores badge-reader exports as "encrypted" blobs: each record is exactly 48 bytes encrypted with AES-128 in ECB mode, then Base64-encoded. Each record is laid out as three 16-byte fields - badge ID (right-padded with spaces), site code, and access tier.
635 words, about 3 min5The Query That Doubled the Revenue
An analyst is asked whether APAC outsold EMEA last quarter. She runs: SELECT o.region, SUM(o.total) AS revenue FROM orders o JOIN line items li ON li.order id = o.id GROUP BY o.region; The orders table holds 5 orders: EMEA 200 and 300; APAC 150, 250, 400.
659 words, about 3 min