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SANS 2026 Holiday Hack Challenge™: The Pyramid on the Ice

Join the global cybersecurity community for the most festive and challenging event of the year. FREE, hands-on cybersecurity challenges for every skill level — with a prize at the end for top entries.

Alert Me When Game OpensGet a Sneak Peek
Polar Pyramid
Jump to:

Something is rising at the North Pole...

Just beyond Santa's castle, where nothing but snowdrifts and aurora once stood, a structure has emerged, slowly, and without explanation. It wasn't there last Christmas. Now it looms over the polar landscape, and it's still growing.

Elven explorers who've gone inside report strange carvings etched deep into the ice — fragments of something much bigger than anyone expected.

What is it? Who's building it? And what happens if nobody stops it before Christmas Eve?

You'll have to play to find out.

What to Expect This Year

  • Six mini-games you can play straight, or hack your way through — hacking is always the more interesting route
  • AI is welcome here. Use it, orchestrate with it, and compete for our new Best AI Orchestration award
  • Smoother movement, more personality. We've improved how your avatar moves through the world, still with that signature whimsical hop, plus a new “emote” feature so you can express yourself as you explore
  • Cohorts are back. Build a private scoreboard with your team or friend group and see who climbs to the top
  • Built with the community. Several challenges this year were shaped by past players and HHC superfans who wanted to give back
  • Discord is home base. Join the community to swap tips, share wins, and connect with other players all season long
Join the Discord
Inside the Polar Pyramid

What Players Are Learning

This year spans six skill areas from foundational fundamentals to advanced, cutting-edge topics. Whether your brand new to cyber or a seasoned pro, there's a challenge built for you.

  • Web & Application Security
  • Cloud & Infrastructure
  • Binary & Reverse Engineering
  • Networking & Systems
  • AI/ML Security
  • Browser & Client-Side

Plus, puzzle-based challenges, command-line practice, and grand challenges built in partnership with Microsoft and Google.

Outside the Polar Pyramid

Meet This Year’s Sponsors!

Be the First to Know When the Game Opens

The pyramid is growing. The game isn't open yet — but you don't want to miss the moment it is. Subscribe to be notified the second the Holiday Hack Challenge goes live.

Start Your Adventure into This Year’s Holiday Hack Challenge: The Pyramid on the Ice

Play HHZ Freezer Dream Tournament, a turn-based tactical fighting game set in a frozen arena full of shifting weather and magical scarabs. Pick a fighter like Santa or Alabaster Snowball, outsmart your opponent each turn, and work your way through the Tournament to a final boss fight showdown. There's endless fun in Arcade mode or when facing off against a friend head-to-head online. Beyond the fun to be had in the game, it’s also hackable. In challenge mode, you'll need to hack to become powerful enough to finish an impossible fight. The full hacking challenge is available in this preview, exactly as it will appear when the Holiday Hack Challenge launches. Get a head start on the competition while having magical fighting fun until the official launch of HHC 2026!

Get a Head Start

While You Wait

Practice with Past Challenge

Warm up with last year’s Holiday Hack Challenge before this year's game opens.

Explore 2025 ChallengeFind Past Hints

Get the Soundtrack

Get festive with original HHC soundtracks from over the years, available on Spotify, Apple Music, and more.

Listen Now

Join the Discord

Connect with other players, swap theories, and be part of the community before the game even starts.

Join Discord

Decoded: Contest Rules and Credits

Submit a report describing how you solved each objective for a chance to win. You don't have to answer everything — partial entries are still eligible.

  1. Best Customer Report: Awarded to the report that best defines professional, customer-ready security reporting: clear findings, evidence, impact, recommendations, and usefulness.
  2. Most Creative: Awarded for originality, storytelling, presentation, artistic effort, unusual approaches, or memorable execution.
  3. Best AI Orchestration: Awarded for the strongest demonstrated AI-assisted cybersecurity workflow, including methodology, tooling, model use, validation, failure handling, and human-AI collaboration.
  4. Overall Winner: Overall best report.

Plus, the standard Honorable Mention, Super Honorable Mention, and the ESNET award.

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 report earns our Grand Prize ­— a complimentary SANS OnDemand 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.

Remember, you can also compete in private cohorts with your team, friends, or coworkers!

Feel free to post partial or full answers or write-ups publicly any time after November 26, 2025 so that others can learn from your work and build their own skills. Also, DO NOT ASSUME any posted write-ups are correct answers or that they even will be submitted by their authors in the competition. Even if you think your own answer or write-up doesn’t stack up against something that’s been posted, send it in any way by January 5, 2027 for a chance to win!

Prizes: SANS course, SANS Summit pass, SSQ (SANS Skill Quest) subscription, CyberStudio course

Challenge Wrangler: Mark Devito

World Builders: Led by Evan Booth, Thomas Bouve, Kyle Parrish, and Eric Pursley.

World Wranglers: Jared Folkins

Story & Narrative: Story concept by Ed Skoudis; narrative and dialogue by Kyle Parrish and Eric Pursley.

AI Wranglers: Tooling by Evan Booth; dialogue creation by Kyle Parrish and Eric Pursley; NPC voice tooling and creation by Thomas Bouve.

Programming: Evan Booth, Mark Devito, Chris Davis, Chris Elgee, Jared Folkins, Charlie Goldner, Janusz Jasinski, Kevin McFarland, and Kyle Parrish.

System Builds & Administration: Jared Folkins

Artwork: Evan Booth, Chris Davis, Tatyana Goldman, and Eric Pursley

Voice Artists: Paul Beckett, Jason Blanchard, Evan Booth, Thomas Bouve, Chris Davis, Mark Devito, Chris Elgee, Jared Folkins, Charlie Goldner, Tom Hessman, Janusz Jasinski, Kevin McFarland, Torkel Opsahl, Christopher Parrish, Karolee Parrish, Kyle Parrish, and Eric Pursley

Challenge Development: Paul Beckett, Evan Booth, Thomas Bouve, Chris Davis, Mark Devito, Chris Elgee, Jared Folkins, Charlie Goldner, Tom Hessman, Janusz Jasinski, Kevin McFarland, Torkel Opsahl, Kyle Parrish, Eric Pursley

Friends of Holiday Hack and 2025 Winners: George Callow, Cody Travis, Ben Krüger, David Forsyth, and Josh “The Microsoft One” Wright.

Sound Design: Eric Pursley

Soundtrack: Ninjula, Ed Skoudis, and Josh Skoudis

Concierge Wranglers: Patrick Chapman and Lynn Schifano.

Discord Coordinator: Kyle Parrish

Get Connected with Holiday Hack

Network with Santa's Helpers

Join the SANS Holiday Hack Challenge Discord

Connect

Follow the North Pole

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