Winners and Answers
This year's Holiday Hack Challenge was a smashing success, due to the enormous number of valiant cyber security people who helped thwart Jack Frost's nefarious plans to destroy the holiday season.
To help people around the world to build their skills, Santa has announced that he'll keep the Holiday Hack Challenge up year-round so you can all practice and work through the challenges as you read through the winning entries below.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
First up, we've got our Honorable Mentions. These folks did a wonderful job with their answers, and we heartily congratulate them:
Matthias Altmann
Joe Ammond
James Baldacchino
Jason Ballard
Stanislav Barta
Jeff Beazley
Olivier Bettan
Blake Bourgeois
David Brochhaus
brokensandbox
Brian Carrick
Matthew Ciantar
Rachel Clark
Ken Clark
Tim Corless-Carter
defyp
Nuttakorn Dhiraprayudti
Miroslav Dimitrov
Dan Fedele
David Forsythe
Nicola Gatta
Amit Giri
godylocks
Samuel Goret
Jevan Gray
Bernhard Griender
Ashish Gupta
John Hammond
Christopher Henseler
Brandon Ingalls
Tomoomi Iwata
Leon Jacobs
Roger Johnsen
Tony Karre
Joe Kattner
Daniel Kaufmann
Mitch Kerle
Colin Kinsella
Jim Kirn
kusuwada
Kylma
Andrea Lamonato
Richard Lang
Manuel Leos Rivas
Xhelal Likaj
Daniel Limanowski
Emily Liu
Dennis Maasbommel
Pasi Mäntynen
Petri Mäkynen
Daniela Mariaschi
Massimo Mariaschi
Manolis Mavrofidis
Yannick MeHeut
Jai Minton
Devesh Mitra
Sarah Noles Muth
Alex Penrose
Christos Polymeropoulos
Pascal Renauld
Reshma
Shahne Rodgers
Michael Ross
Fabio RUINI
Julian Runnels
H Satake
Junichi Sawada
Johann Schnagl
Robert Serafin
Nicolai Seuss
Jason Sosnowski
Calle Svensson
Florian Akos Szabo
KK Tan
Jason Testart
Thais
Michael Torres
unikbyte
Annah Waggoner
Justin Wylie
John York
SUPER HONORABLE MENTIONS
For our next category, we've got a group of people who really went above and beyond with their entries. Their write-ups were SUPERB, demonstrating excellent technical skills along with impressive communication skills. Congrats to those earning a Super Honorable Mention:
R. Bastiaans
Thomas Bouve
Mike Boyle
Curtis Brazzell
Alberto Certo
Sanjay Choudhary
Paul DeCamp
Neal Eikenberry
Coen Goedegebure
Elaine Hung
JJ
Lassi Lehtinen
Steve Maestas
George Mantakos
Mark Mulvaney
Stanislav Nurilov
Kyle Parrish
Sebastian Perez
Jeremy Phillips
Klaus Pulverer
Gabriel Quiroz
Dan Roberts
Jörg Schwarzwälder
Jeroen Schijvenaars
Mo Sharif
Mike Shirley
Cody Travis
RANDOM DRAW ENTRIES - KringleCon T-shirt
Now, let's review our random-draw winners, who will receive a KringleCon t-shirt. By the way, if you'd like, you can still order your own KringleCon t-shirt here (please note, we don't make any money at all from the t-shirts or other KringleCon swag. All proceeds go to the t-shirt vendor).
Suzanne Dove
Mantas Gavenas
Tomoomi Iwata
kusuwada
Charlie Retzler
Shahane Rodgers
Eran Schmilovitz
#TryHolidayHack WINNER! - KringleCoin
MOST CREATIVE ANSWER - Attendance at RSA Conference Virtual Experience 2021
Jeremy Phillips
Runners Up - KringleCoin
Mark Mulvaney
Mike Boyle
BEST TECHNICAL ANSWER - NetWars Continuous Prize
Thomas Bouve
Runner Up - KringleCoin
Gabriel Quiroz
BEST OVERALL ANSWER - GRAND PRIZE WINNER - Free SANS OnDemand Course
Stanislav Nurilov
Runners Up - KringleCoin
Neal Eikenberry
Janusz Jasinski
Extra Special Noteworthy Exemplary Trophy Award - KringleCoin
Andy Smith
With that, let us draw the 2020 SANS Holiday Hack Challenge to a close. Remember, we'll keep the whole system running year-round so you can practice, practice, practice and learn. In fact, as you review the official answers above, you can work through the challenges on your own as you build skills... and that's what the SANS Holiday Hack Challenge is all about!
Thank you all again for helping Santa this year, and we are very much looking forward to having you all join us for the 2021 Holiday Hack Challenge.