If you want to play the challenge yourself, you can find it here:

https://2024.holidayhackchallenge.com/

Story line

Let’s start off by talking to Jingle Ringford:

Welcome to the Geese Islands and the 2023 SANS Holiday Hack Challenge!

I'm Jingle Ringford, one of Santa's many elves.

...

Just kidding! It's actually the 2024 SANS Holiday Hack Challenge!

And although we're on Frosty's Beach on Christmas Island, we'll soon be on our way back to the North Pole.

I thought it best to wait here for people that heard we're on the Geese Islands but may not know we're leaving.

I haven't seen Santa since we started packing up, but he always asks me to give a quick orientation to newcomers, so I'm continuing the tradition.

Before you head out any further onto the island, you need to accomplish two simple tasks.

Solving

Okay, I doubt we’ll need a long writeup here, the HHC starts off easy.

Next the elf there is a “First Terminal”, let’s open it. At the top we can see a simple instruction; “Enter the answer here”.

First Terminal
First Terminal

Let’s follow the instruction and enter the text in the top console. And that’s it! We got the gold medal!