SANS Holiday Hack Cybersecurity Challenge & KringleCon 2023

Join the global cybersecurity community in its most festive cybersecurity challenge of the year. The SANS Holiday Hack Challenge is a FREE series of super fun, high-quality, hands-on cybersecurity challenges. The SANS Holiday Hack Challenge is for all skill levels, with a prize at the end for the best of the best entries.

Now Open!

The 2023 SANS Holiday Hack Challenge: A Holiday Odyssey | Featuring 6: Geese A-Lei'ing!

Listen to Ed Skoudis, Chief Holiday Officer, in this Welcome and Game Orientation video.

This year, Santa and the elves have moved to an island archipelago near the equator in the Pacific Ocean. On these Geese Islands, Santa's team is using a new Artificial Intelligence tool called ChatNPT to prepare for the annual gift-giving extravaganza. The elves need your help in making sure that they apply ChatNPT appropriately. To that end, we recommend that you set up and use your own free account in OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Bard, or Microsoft's Bing AI tools to help you solve challenges while learning vital cybersecurity lessons.

Join us on Discord where you can chat with other players to share tips in various text or voice channels. There are many new and exciting activities involving AI and you don't want to miss any special tip to get a chance to win one of the coveted Holiday Hack Challenge prizes!

SANS Holiday Hack Challenge 2023 Winners and Answers

A shout-out to the players for a job well done figuring out difficult cybersecurity challenges.

Contest Instructions

If you'd like to enter the contest for a chance to win a prize, please submit a report with a description of how you solved each objective in the Google form here (requires a Google account to access) by the end of the day on January 5, 2024*. Alternatively, if you'd rather not use the Google form, you can email your answers to SANSHolidayHackChallenge@counterhack.com. To win, you must use some form of AI (such as the free OpenAI ChatGPT, Google Bard, or Microsoft Bing AI tools) in solving at least some of the challenges, including in your answers a sampling of the AI prompts that you used to solve them. You DO NOT have to answer all questions to be eligible to win a prize. All reports must be 100 pages or fewer in length.

From all submitted entries, we'll pick seven winners, according to the following plan:

  • One random draw answer – ONE COMPLETELY REFURBISHED ORIGINAL NINTENDO GAME BOY WITH ALL HOLIDAY HACK 2023 GAME BOY GAMES LOADED
  • Three random draw answers whose users have clicked on each of the five vendor booths (Google, Microsoft, Amazon, SANS.edu, and Holiday Hack Swag Store) – A HOLIDAY HACK CHALLENGE T-SHIRT
  • The best technical answer - ONE SUBSCRIPTION TO NETWARS CONTINUOUS for FOUR MONTHS
  • The most creative answer that is technically correct - ONE COMPLETELY REFURBISHED ORIGINAL NINTENDO GAME BOY WITH ALL HOLIDAY HACK 2023 GAME BOY GAMES LOADED
  • The best overall answer, our GRAND PRIZE WINNER - ONE SANS ONLINE TRAINING COURSE**

Remember, even if you can't answer one or more of the questions, please do submit an answer of any kind to be entered in our random draw. Seriously, if you get 50%, 80%, or 98% of the answers, you'll still be eligible to win.

The very best overall answer earns our Grand Prize - a complimentary SANS Online Training course of your choice! The winner will choose from any of SANS' 30+ Online Courses, and will complete SANS training at their own pace from anywhere on the internet.

We kindly ask that you refrain from publicly publishing any answers, write-ups, or walkthroughs until after our submission deadline of January 5, 2024. Once that passes, please feel free to publish!

Happy Holidays!

--Counter Hack and Friends

* Any time zone on planet Earth will do.

** SANS will choose only one winner for the Grand Prize. These prizes are not transferable to another person or event and do not include a certification attempt. Only one course will be awarded per category, regardless of how many people contributed to a winning submission. No substitutions are allowed. For any of these prizes, SANS is not responsible for lost, late, or unintelligible entries, lost connections, miscommunications, failed transmissions, reindeer attacks, or other technical difficulties or failures.

Get ready to sail on this year’s challenges!

  • AI-assisted cybersecurity, offense and defense
  • AI voice synthesis
  • Cloud security
  • Web application security
  • Threat hunting in Windows Cloud
  • Identifying vulnerabilities in space mission software packages
  • Lock picking
  • Phishing analysis
  • Cyber Defense Azure AD Configurations

Geese a Lei’ing 2023 Talks

Watch insightful talks from the Holiday Hack Challenge experts and you may find some hints.
HHC 2023 Web Merch

Gear Up for Holiday Hack Challenge 2023

Bring your Holiday Hack experience to life with our exclusive merchandise. Get decked out in style for the most festive cybersecurity challenge of the year.

Visit our store now to explore top Holiday Hack Challenge gear!

Press Play While You Play Holiday Hack Challenge

Immerse yourself in the festive spirit of the SANS Holiday Hack Challenge, where talented musicians create awesome albums each year. Sing along and make your learning experience even more jolly! Also available on Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music.

Credits

  • Producer:

    Ed Skoudis

     

    Challenge Wrangler:

    Mark Devito

     

    World Builder Builder:

    Evan Booth

     

    World Builders:

    Evan Booth

    Thomas Bouve

    Eric Pursley

     

    World Wranglers:

    Jared Folkins

    Vince Valenti

     

    Narrative / Story:

    Ed Skoudis, Eric Pursley, & Chris Elgee

     

    AI Wranglers:

    Dialog Tooling: Evan Booth

    Dialog Creation: Thomas Bouve, Chris Elgee, Eric Pursley, Janusz Jasinski

    NPC Voice Tooling and Creation: Thomas Bouve

     

    Programming:

    Evan Booth

    Mark Devito

    Thomas Bouve

    Chris Davis

    Chris Elgee

    Jared Folkins

    Janusz Jasinski

    Kevin McFarland

     

    System Builds & Administration:

    Jared Folkins

    Vince Valenti

     

    Artwork:

    Evan Booth

    Thomas Bouve

    Chris Davis

    Chloe Drage

    Janusz Jasinski

    Oleksandr Lotrarev

    Kevin McFarland

    Eric Pursley

    Annie Royal

     

    Voice Artists:

    Greg Bailey

    Jason Blanchard

    Evan Booth

    Thomas Bouve

    Dr. Ch33r10

    Isabel Davis

    Mark “Pitched Up” Devito

    Mark “The Don” Devito

    Mark “Walken” Devito

    Anna Elgee

    Christy Elgee

    Chris Elgee

    Emma Elgee

    Joshua Elgee

    Jared Folkins

    Prathika Gonchigar

    Blake Hayes

    Kat Hessman

    Janusz Jasinski

    Phoebe Jasinska

    Joshua Jasinski

    Jeff McJunkin

    Jai Minton

    Divya Pursley

    Eric Pursley

    Lila Regas

    Ed Skoudis

    Johannes Ullrich

    Brenda van Rensburg

    Paddy Verberne

     

    Challenge Development:

    Greg Bailey

    Evan Booth

    Thomas Bouve

    Chris Davis

    Mark Devito

    Chris Elgee

    Jared Folkins

    Janusz Jasinski

    Simeon Kakpovi

    Michael Johnston

    Kevin McFarland

    Eric Pursley

    Henry Reed

    Greg Schloemer

    Curtis Slade

    Alexander Sloutsky

    Yam Ben-Tzvi

    Josh “The Microsoft One” Wright

    Ariel Yehezkely

     

    Sound Design:

    Eric Pursley

     

    Soundtrack:

    Ninjula, Ed Skoudis, and Josh Skoudis

     

    Website Design:

    Lynnie Brewer

    Jared Olson

     

    Concierge Wranglers:

    Patrick Chapman

    Lynn Schifano

     

    Discord Coordinator (Dis-Coordinator?):

    Chris Elgee

     

    Swag Designer and Implementer:

    Chloe Drage (Designer & Implementer)

    Bel Valente Lucas (Implementer)

    Lynn Schifano (Implementer)

     

    Testing and Feedback:

    Greg Bailey

    Evan Booth

    Thomas Bouve

    George Callow

    Chris Davis

    Mark Devito

    Michael Dopheide

    Chris Elgee

    Jared Folkins

    Vlad Grigorescu

    Tom Hessman

    Janusz Jasinski

    Phoebe Jasinska

    Joshua Jasinski

    Michael Johnston

    Chet Kress

    Kevin McFarland

    Jovan Nieves

    Sam Oehlert

    Eric Pursley

    Henry Reed

    Ali Sawan

    Lynn Schifano

    Ed Skoudis

     

    Conference Speakers:

    Thomas Bouve

    Chris Elgee

    Henry Reed

    Ed Skoudis

     

    Marketing Direction:

    Bel Valente Lucas

     

     Marketing:

    Anshul Sharma

    Avner Aharoni

    Cecilia Eklund

    Colton Slesser

    Debra Gawet

    Elizabeth Glomb

    Jennifer Elston

    Katie Thomas

    Laura O’Connor

    Lauren Revees

    Michelle Petersen

    Rebecca Howard

    Sarah Wilson

    Thomas Wolfe

     

    Teaser Video:

    Chloe Drage

     

    Coin Design:

    Chloe Drage

     

    In-Game Videos:

    Chris Davis

     

    Special Thanks to…

    NASA

     

    Extra Special Thanks To...

    The SANS Institute

Special Thanks To Our Sponsors

Inside the Magical World of Holiday Hack

Join Ed Skoudis, Chief Holiday Officer, in this episode of 'Wait Just an Infosec' as he gives you a sneak peek into what happens behind the curtains of the Holiday Hack Challenge! Listen to our players', artists', and designers' perspectives, and gather your thoughts on ideas, tips, and tricks that could put you ahead of the competition to succeed in HHC 2023.