This fall UNLV once again hosted Sandia National Laboratories signature Capture the Flag (CTF) event – TracerFIRE. This year’s event welcomed nearly 140 participants, including 27 UNLV students, the majority of whom had no prior TracerFIRE experience.

Engaging new participants in the exercise is of key importance as TracerFIRE and other CTF events help students hone their technical skills and apply theoretical knowledge they’ve learned in the classroom to solve-real-world challenges.

A CTF is an exercise in which participants attempt to find a hidden file or piece of information, the “flag”, that is hidden in programs or website. It tests students’ abilities to find security vulnerabilities in a test IT environment. And, since most CTFs require participants to join forces as a team, the events help individuals learn how to work together and tackle complex, multistep challenges.

 "Sandia CTF was a great first in-person CTF experience. Working with a team to solve the problems allowed us to collaborate and learn at the next level." – Arturo R., Computer Science undergraduate student

"As someone being very new to cybersecurity and even more so to CTFs, the Sandia CTF was really enjoyable and gives a glimpse of how modern incident response operates." – Hendry L., Computer Science undergraduate student

TracerFIRE (Forensic and Incident Response Exercise) for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is a program developed by Sandia National Laboratories to educate and train cybersecurity incident responders (CSIRs), analysts, and university students in critical skill areas. The program also aims to improve collaboration and teamwork among staff members. Several hundred CSIRs from the DOE, other U.S. government agencies, and critical infrastructure organizations have been trained from this program.

Thank you to the Sandia National Laboratories team, including Matthew Trotter and Matthew Robinson, as well as all of the participants and everyone who contributed their time, knowledge and resources to put on this event.

"The Sandia TracerFIRE CTF was not only a great learning experience into incident response, but also helped me develop critical skills necessary for any blue team activities that I can take into the professional world." – Katrina P., Computer Science PhD candidate