Holiday Hack Challenge Ed Skoudis Interview

Key Takeaways

Al righty well hey thank you so much everyone for tuning in and look I I got to admit I think I'm in for quite a treat this time around because I'm joined by my good friend and if I may say I a fan of uh the incredible Ed scotus who's been doing a ton of phenomenal work putting together I don't know training education everything in cyber security and uh now again uh the annual time of year here the Sans holiday hack challenge Ed it's great to see you my friend how are you for one thing and then I'd love to learn everything you're willing to share absolutely thank you John gosh I'm a fan of yours I've loved your work you've um really helped holiday hack for so many years you know posting information helping people learn having people play and learn how to play and all the other stuff that you do for the community it is just a delight whenever I get a chance to interact with you I'm super excited about spending this time with you telling you about holiday hack 2024 and I appreciate the opportunity to do so but personally let me just say thank you for for all that you do for the community and I got to say man your hair it's I I envy it um it's just a beautiful thing well goodness I'm flattered but it's it's mutual right back at you look I I'm stoked for Holiday hack challenge it has been a labor love I think I started playing I don't know was it way back in like 2015 2016 I don't remember if it dates even that far back but what's new I know it has changed throughout the years what's new for 2024 we have completely reimagined it this year this is the biggest change that we've done in 10 years for Holiday hack we've been doing holiday hack for 21 years now 22 years so I wasn't too far off right I don't know no not at all maybe some of your folks don't even know what holiday hack is should I Define that if you're willing yeah a little bit of background context so so you know what is holiday hack well first of all uh you know at the Sans technology Institute I'm the president of our college and one of the things I've been doing for 20 some years is working with my team to create this holiday hack Challenge and the holiday hack challenge is um it's many things I mean it is it is a cyber range that is themed around Santa Claus and the elves you apply itical cyber security skills in various challenges to help save the holiday season from you know various holiday super villains you know in the past we've had Cindy L who age 62 we've had the Grinch in past years we've had Doctor Who has been our villain we've had the Tooth Fairy I mean there's Jack Frost is a recurring nefarious character so you have to help save the holiday season by solving cyber secur skills you could call it a CTF but it's it's more than a CTF it's a cyber range it's a little virtual world that you get to hop around in it's a it's an event where you can network with other people and work together as teams it's it's all these different things we release an album of Music custom music that we create just for the holidays um it's all that stuff rolled up into one and it's free it's 100% free so that's what holiday hack is but you say holiday hack 2024 what is that all about well this year we've changed so much stuff in it it's like a complete reenvisioning of holiday hack and the biggest thing that players oh by the way we we have have about 20,000 players every year and uh we're hoping to get even more this year one of my dreams is to get to 25,000 so please John tell all your friends to play your whole audience I hope they play and tell their friends to play it's completely free completely free um really and and registration is coming up soon because you can early regge for it but uh the biggest change that people will notice of many changes is we changed our schedule in the past 20 plus years we've launched the second week of December and people say oh hey you know I'm excited to see it you know December 5th or 8th or 10th 12th but uh you know it's kind of a busy time of year for me can you give me some love this year the holiday hack challenge will launch November 7th November 7th so it's like a month earlier so that's one big change and and we hope that will get and and by the way you you'll still have the same amount of time as before to do it you can play through uh the challenge itself will run officially until January 3rd so November 7th to January 3rd you got plenty of time if you're used to playing in December you can still play in December but if you want that extra month earlier you've got it but another thing worth pointing out is you can always play year round if you want to play holiday hack in July you can it's not competitive it's only competitive for that January 3rd deadline but if you want to practice you could practice anytime in fact if you want to play holiday hack 2023 you can go there right now you just you know just do a a Google search for sans's Holiday hack it'll be your top hit so so first thing is we're going to launch earlier any comments thoughts on that John that's number one well I for one am ecstatic to hear it because I tend to spend a lot of the holiday season uh with family and loved ones once and I I got to play the good boyfriend so we'll go to my girlfriend's parents and her family uh so I want to spend time with them but I also want to just kind of sit in a corner on my laptop and play this capture flag competition so I appreciate a little bit of extra time at least getting you know uh hey some November and some opportunity and Runway before the festivities kick off that's so cool that's awesome next thing is we're going to slice it up it's not going to be a single giant monolithic release we've always done that in the past and if you look at holiday hack 2023 what dro on your head second week of December was this massive world where you'd have to sail around in boats and walk around on six different islands and Conquer 23 challenges it was a lot for somebody to digest this year we're going to release it in four parts on November 7th that's the first part that we'll release we're going to call that prologue and prologue is going to be pretty small prologue is going to pick up where last year ended up you're going to be working with the elves to package up all of their stuff on this island chain in the Pacific Ocean we call it the geese islands and getting ready to sail back to the North Pole there's going to be a couple of mini games that you can hack on the island but the whole idea of prologue is you get re-involved with the story if you've never played before you'll quickly understand what's going on it's it's totally cool you'll hack a couple of things you'll set up your avatar you'll make sure your account is set up and you get used to the gain mechanics that's prologue November 7th then the following Monday November 11th we release act one and act one will have three or four challenges you're back at the North Pole you're starting to see the elves interact with things you're starting to get an understanding of maybe what's going on that's nefarious there that's act one and that'll be November 11th one week later we get to act two act two will be another three or four challenges and that will launch November 18th and you'll be able to work on that okay so again November 7th November 11th November 18th it's a phased release we're not going to release any new material during the week of us Thanksgiving all right so that's that week of November 25th act three which is the Final Act will launch December 2nd and that will be all of the content there will be released the second another three or four challenges com there then you'll have from December 2nd all the way to January 3rd to work on your you know hacking and challenges and such coming up with the answers and submitting your entry if you'd like to win so it's in addition to the changed schedule it's going to be a phased set of releases thoughts I think that's awesome again just to like you mentioned hey it was a mountain of material kind of piled on you as it has been historically so at least smaller chunks is a very cool thing and we could always kind of go back to the stuff that was previous done right like hey I miss prologue or if I miss phase one hey phase two or phase three rolls around I can still kind of catch up as needed you can jump in whenever you want if you wanted to play the entire thing according to our normal schedule starting second week of December you could I mean it's everything will be released for you if you want to start earlier you're going to hit these little stopping points where it's like I've conquered prologue what do I do now you get excited about Act One it'll come four days later well I've conquered act one what do I do well wait for act two it's coming three days later well I've conquered act two what do I do Happy Thanksgiving wait for December 2nd okay yeah eat some turkey yeah exactly or help other people because we want we want people to engage and we have a Discord Channel where people can can help you out and such we have concierges uh that help folks out so that's the second big change is the phased release you want to hear the third big change I do I might have a selfish question but I'm curious if you'll answer it so I'll let you I'll let you run with it first no I'm ready for your question anytime you want okay well I was thinking just as you were mentioning hey helping folks out you know hey trying to share the community and get the knowledge education out and about I might ask from the old cheesy content creator uh a buzzwords whatever like hey I'd love to be able to spread the love and I don't know either live stream or showcase some of the sweet stuff from Sam's Al hack challenge uh is that in scope now I know historically it's always been yeah no wait wait till the new year right it's dude we're like we're totally on the same page here like you know it's like we're surfing and you're on the wave over there and I'm on the wave over here and just you just gave me a thumbs up the third big change in the past we have told people we've actually forbidden them from posting their answers for Holiday hack until January so that nobody can cheat or anything like that we're completely changing that rule for this year we're doing this it's going to be really cool but to encourage people to learn and to collaborate and to have fun we are going to let people post their answers when the next phase gets released in other words you're going to launch prologue like I said November 7th once Act One releases on November 11th you can live stream or post your answers or do whatever you you want for prologue then for act one just wait a week and when act two launches you could post all of your answers for act one then when act three Launches on December second you could post all of your answers for act two but for act three the hardest the Capstone the end for that we ask you to wait till January 3rd but we want to get more and more people involved the whole idea is to reach out to more people to have more people play to have more people have fun to have more people learn and we want folks with an audience like like yours to be able to communicate with that audience to say hey here's some stuff here's what you can learn why don't you go ahead and do it or I can even show you in live stream we hope people are going to do this you know in various live streaming formats maybe it's in YouTube maybe it's in twitch whatever it is we're really hoping that people will do that and kind of embrace this well if I may say I think that is a phenomenal structure and setup and I think hey you know hat tip and like I think it'll work I think it I think it will help be a little bit of a megaphone or a good funnel uh to keep the hype going and to keep the excitement and everyone's enthusiasm for the game even throughout hey the week since it rolls through and the holiday season so uh I think this is all awesome personally but wait there's more oh are you ready so every challenge can be solved in an easier mode and a harder modee so you every challenge so when you get into this challenge it might say well I want to do the easy mode well just solve it just solve it and you might solve it in the easy mode way well how will you know because you're going to be able to get a silver or a gold little icon silver means you solved it in the easy way gold means means you solved it in the harder way just solve it and if you solve it John and it the thing Turns Gold you solved it in the hard way good for you you're done but if you solve it in the the silver way you'll get you know the easier way you get this little silver icon you be how do I solve it in the harder way and the harder way might actually be more subtle more complex there might be some additional evidence or a more profound hack that you have to do and the elves will start hinting you in the hard way so if you if you just solve it and you get gold you did it that's great if you solve it and get silver you say how do I do gold the elves will give you hints the elves are non-player characters they'll give you hints saying hey if you want to do this and get a gold try this try that try this so that you can now and if you just want to play the whole game on easy mode that's fine or maybe you get to the end of the game and you've solved half of them easy half of them hard if you're good with that we're good with that but you might get to the end of the game and you've solved some easy some hard you can go back and try to solve the easier ones in the harder mode it's it's up to you but we want more people to finish more people to learn more I feel pretty good if I solve something and find out that it's on easy mode good I solved it at least I did something but it gives me the the stretch opportunity to go back and do it in in the harder mode so so every challenge what are we up to is this the fifth change or the fourth change I think four changes maybe four little stop counting so so what do you think easy mode versus I it's fun because it makes me feel a little bit more like a video game that I can casually play whether it's I don't know a little Super Mario kind of Nintendo style thing which is very cool and again just for like look I want the Casual experience some sweet story to narrative to go through for the holiday season or look I want to keep hacking away I do want to get into the nitty-gritty and dive in the technical weeds here so cool to have both options is that meaning that hey you know you could just Coast so to speak to like oh just get the story on its own or are there more I don't know even now future opportunities that's the fifth change but let me just put a bow on the end of the fourth change and that is we were inspired by the Super Mario series from Nintendo kind of say hey when you're when you're playing that game the game kind of lets you solve things in Easy Mode but then if you start solving things in harder mode you can stick with that harder mode and we're like what can we learn and be inspired by that but then we get to our fifth big change and that's what we call playthrough mode and playthrough mode is where you you know you try to solve a challenge and maybe you can't do it if you look at our holiday hack work past eight or nine years only about two or 3% of the people got all the way through every challenge which I'm happy with cuz I mean some of these challenges are really hard but the thing of it is to see the full story you'd have to get through the full set of challenges so only two to 3% maybe 4% on a good year would actually see the entire story that's not good we spend a lot of time on the story as you know this fun quirky weird story so now if you get stuck on a challenge or even if you don't get stuck you can just hit the playthrough button and it'll Advance you to the next challenge and you'll see the story advancing so you could jump into this game and just play through every challenge now obviously you're going to get to a stop you know once act one is done you got to wait for act two to launch but if you come in December 3rd you can just play through play through play through play and just watch the story unfold I guess it's just a little set of you know animated characters jumping around and then go back and actually play so we've got playthrough mode which another big big difference for us um that is very cool and if you do play through we'll give you a bronze so you get bronze for play through silver for actually having done something easy mode and then gold for for the harder mode well actually if I may I'd love to pull that thread a little bit uh because come the end of the game uh you all do an incredible little award ceremony and prizes and rewards is that something we could dance with or I don't know am I missing anything else to Showcase here so we do have one other change what are we up to six now I should I've lost finger one other change this is something that I've wanted for many years and we're we're almost there we almost got it finished and that is what we call cohort mode so the idea is well well actually there's two changes based on this before we get to cohort mode I got a six one for you scoreboard interactive in-game scoreboards we've not done that in the past explicitly cuz we just figured well you just work your way through the challenge we don't want to overemphasize the competitive nature of this this is about learning and having fun but this year there will be an in-game scoreboard actually a group of scoreboards there's the overall scoreboard about how everybody's doing and then some of the individual challenges or mini games will have their own scoreboard and they're going to be in this underground Cavern I don't want to give too much away about how it's going to look but it's going to be really cool and you'll be able to see the scoreboard so that's a new thing there's going to be a score so you can see how you're doing with respect to other players very cool so that's I guess our sixth change and the seventh change is based on the scoreboard and that is cohorts so if you've got a group of friends that you want to play against you'll be able to say create a cohort and it'll give you a little you can choose a name for your cohort and it'll give you a little string for your cohort then you share that with your friends in the cohort and in addition to the big scoreboard in this underground Cavern there'll be another scoreboard just for your cohort so you can compete just against your friends and see how they're doing or a company can have their own little cohort in there that are competing against each other so it's not team based play you know teams is where people can collaborate you could do team based play just on your you know you just have you know five different accounts and you collaborate or even one account that you're all working on at the same time so cohorts are actually I think more useful than teams because now you can set up a friendly little competition between you and your friends uh or within your own company or government agency or what have you so this adding the scoreboards opened us up to say well wouldn't it be cool to now have competitive cohorts in there so you'll see that too so that if you add it all up I guess that's seven big changes for 2024 and you can see we completely reimagined this sucker and if you if you add up you know two challenges in prologue and three or four in act one and act two and act three the number of challenges is different this year it's going to end up being about 13 14 challenges which I think is much more digestible than 24 or more challenges dropping out of the sky so there's going to be a lot of challenges and a lot for you to do that's absolutely for sure but it's not quite the commitment in the past that was required to get through the whole thing um so we kind of tried to re-envision uh it this way this is experimental of course but I it's it's based on 20 years of learning of us on you know what makes for a good challenge what makes her to be fun and interesting well my goodness uh at least from the outside looking in so far all of these changes sound like wonderful new little improvements uh I had not seen or even heard of the Rumblings and uh rumors of the the cohort technique before that is gonna be very very cool drop that one on you just now huh excellent I think it's GNA pretty cool and fun I mean the whole purpose of doing this is it's a it's a gift to the community I mean the the cyber security Community has been so kind to me and my team these we feel it's it's our family it's the people that that we work with that we love we want to lift them up we want to help train them in new technologies new ideas we want them to have some fun I mean the goal is for you to learn to have some fun a couple of laughs holiday spirit this is our way of giving back the the the Sans holiday challenge we always say s's gift to the community we work really hard on this we spend a lot of time and a tremendous amount of resources every year on this thing but this year we wanted to do it all different but still delivering this really high quality familyfriendly event you know a lot of times little kids will play this you know the kids will play the video game aspect you know s year olds 10 year olds 15 year olds whatever and then maybe their parents or even some of the kids are working on the hacking challenges too so I I think that's great great fun also we're going to have offense and defense and forensics challenges all mixed in with each other some ENT stuff will be in there too I I think people are going to really love it and the story is as weird as ever maybe even weirder this year 10% more weird you know so well my goodness uh I cannot wait I am ecstatic and looking forward to it so much uh and hey if I may I know you got to run I know you're a busy fella uh but if we totally wrap it up super quick are there any hey what's the call to action you know how can folks dive in is it just a Google search holay half challenge yep so right now people can do a Google search on sans's holiday hack Challenge and it'll be your top number one hit go there and you can play the 20123 game and very shortly it might be by the time you post this John uh you'll be able to pre-register saying notify me when this thing launches uh so you'll know but again it's going to be November 7th 11th 18th and December 2nd but you can play the 2023 game to kind of you know feel your way through our UI and all that kind of stuff you can also View many of the answers you could see who won last year and read their answers and some of the answers are in video form so you can watch them on YouTube and such so the call to action is check it out uh maybe play 2023 a little bit just to get a feel for it and register to be notified when 2024 launches all righty hey let's all do it let's all run with it we'll get that what 25,000 all incredible but that would be and there's prizes there's prizes too you can see all the prizes stuff over at the sand site uh I think you're going to love it well I know you got a dash my friend but this is so exciting and I'll see you at the North Pole John you're awesome see you there buddy take care