The US Cyber Command was officially activated on 21MAY2010. Some observers noted the the mix of letters and numbers around the inner ring of the organization’s symbol. Sean-Paul Correll, a threat researcher with antivirus vendor Panda Security, claims to be the first to decode the meaning.
9ec4c12949a4f31474f299058ce2b22a
Those familiar with programming or cryptography will quickly recognize that the string is hexadecimal. The question was, what did it represent?
“I knew right away it was an MD5 hash, and I was fairly confident that it wasn’t a specific file,” said Correll. an MD5 has is often used to verify that a file’s contents after downloading match the original edition.
The MD5 value turns out to be a hash of Cybercom’s 58-word mission statement:
USCYBERCOM plans, coordinates, integrates, synchronizes and conducts activities to: direct the operations and defense of specified Department of Defense information networks and; prepare to, and when directed, conduct full spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains, ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries.
A representative of Cybercom confirmed that Correll had it right. ” Mr. Correll is correct…it’s a MD5 hash,” said Lt. Commander Steve Curry of the U.S. Navy, in an e-mail.
“Information security professionals are very challenge driven,” said Correll, so tackling the problem was fun…while it lasted. “Absolutely, this was definitely fun,” he said.
More info:
Researcher cracks ‘secret’ code in U.S. Cyber Command logo
A code you can hack: On CYBERCOM’s logo
United States Cyber Command