Holiday Hack Challenge 2025 Introduction

The 2025 edition of the SANS Holiday Hack challenge brings us back to the Dosis Neighborhood. It has been 10 years since the last time we were here to help the Dosis kids get to the bottom of the "Gnome in Your Home" situation. In 2015, these gnomes where placed as holiday decorations in the houses around the neighborhood only to end up being part of a sophisticated spyware network orchestrated by the Atnas corporation and Cindy Lou Who, aged 62.

After a decade, these Gnomes have sprung back to life and are now causing a ruckus. This strange magical behavior also coincides with some cybersecurity issues being noticed. I think if I can understand and resolve the cybersecurity threats I will also discover what these gnomes are up to.

I'm Cody Travis, a cybersecurity analyst that has been focused on application security for about 15 years now. I really enjoy solving these yearly holiday-themed challenges and am looking forward to presenting this report showing how I completed all of the objectives.

	Cody Travis
	cody@chillaspect.com
	@cwtravis1