The 2018 SANS Holiday Hack Challenge has officially ended, although the targets and all game assets remain available for you to practice. The official answers and winners are located here.

Greetings, holiday travelers! Welcome to the North Pole for KringleCon, the first-ever cyber security conference hosted by Santa and his elves.

You can access all of the objectives for this year's Holiday Hack Challenge here.

As you work on those objectives, you can also attend KringleCon to watch talks, network with other attendees, and work on your objectives by entering the North Pole and visiting Santa's castle! Make sure you stop by Santa himself along the way to populate your badge by clicking on Santa. At any time, you can click on your badge (the black Christmas tree at the center of your avatar) for details and status. You can access KringleCon here.

Also, please do keep an eye on your badge for updates on the narrative and various happenings around Santa's castle during the con! Gosh, we are hoping for a fun event this year without nefarious holiday capers impacting us.

Please answer each of the 10 objectives by January 14, 2019*. If you'd like to enter the contest for a chance to win a prize, please send the description of how you unraveled each objective to SANSHolidayHackChallenge@counterhack.com. You DO NOT have to answer all questions to be eligible to win a prize.

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

• Seven random draw answers selected from all entries, regardless of how complete or incomplete they are
• The best technical answer
• The most creative answer that is technically correct, our GRAND PRIZE WINNER - SANS LIVE**
• The best overall answer, our GRAND PRIZE WINNER - SANS ONLINE TRAINING**

Remember, even if you can't answer one or more of the questions, please do send in 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 seven random draw answers will receive a much coveted, beautiful Holiday Hack T-Shirt from KringleCon.

The best technical answer will receive a subscription to NetWars Continuous, with 4 months of access to the exciting SANS cyber range to develop skills, have fun, and earn CPEs!

The most creative answer that is technically correct will receive our Grand Prize - SANS Live, a complimentary LIVE SANS course at an event of your choosing (travel and expenses not included).

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.

Happy Holidays!

--Counter Hack and Friends

* Any time zone on planet Earth will do.

**SANS will choose only one winner for the Grand Prize - SANS Live and one winner for the Grand Prize - SANS Online Training. These prizes are not transferable to another person or event and do not include a certification attempt. No substitutions are allowed for either Grand Prize. For any of these prizes, SANS is not responsible for lost, late, or unintelligible entries, lost connections, miscommunications, failed transmissions, other technical difficulties or failures.

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