pls_keep_the_lights_on

There's way too many spooky things happening right now for the lights to get taken down, too. If the energy goes out, I'm out. For real.

People often forget that open source intelligence isn't just for gathering information for defense and CTFs, but attackers use it, too. If the attackers are using it, our defenders need to be using it. But with more and more information out there, it's getting harder to keep track of everything.

Part of me wishes we had a way to automatically gather it (but I also want to keep a job).

Guess it doesn't matter what I want, because earlier this week I found out a group published a novel plan for protecting our power grids. I wanted to see if their plan was legitimate or not, and even though I know where I found it means that it works - I needed to know, y'know? So I looked up the top researcher listed and they just took a role at a entity that I obviously use a lot.

So I have a task for you to see if you're able to keep up with me or if you're just going to be left in the dark. Maybe you'll even find out more than I know! Get me the Document ID of the new method, and then do some digging on the entity. Keep it local to wherever the filing went through. If they're really reputable, there's a good chance the government knows about them. Let's see how far back this goes - get me their original 5 digit government code at this location and the year they were first established under that code there.

Just do me a favor - don't bother the military with this. There are free tools to use that'll do just fine.

Flag Format: NICC{DOCUMENT_ID-CODE#-YYYY} Developed By

Cyb0rgSw0rd