Event Summary

Event Outcome:

TracerFIRE 12 was an absolute success! The event accomplished the projects goal of providing university students with their first Capture the Flag like experience and engaging in team collaboration. Additionally, graduate students and students who already have the skills tested in the challenge further enhanced their skill by participating. Student testimonials, written at the bottom of this page, indicated that the event was a great success where students not only got to learn but have fun overall! 

This event would not have been possible without the support and guidance of the Sandia Team, as well as Dr. Kim and Cheryl Bella, and our Sandia university guests, Matthew Trotter and Matthew Robinson. And a huge thank you to everyone who contributed their time, knowledge, and resources to actually make and design TracerFIRE 12 into becoming a reality.  Finally, thank you to all of the students who showed up during the weekend! TracerFIRE is not possible without its participants and we hope to see you at future TracerFIRE events as well!

Number of Participants:

~139 total participants, with 27 students from University of Nevada Las Vegas. 

Of the 27 UNLV students attending, 20 had no prior TracerFIRE experience!

Student Demographic:

Majors of Students:

57%, Bachelors of Computer Science

14%, Cybersecurity

14%, Information Systems

12%, MS MIS / MS Cybersecurity / MBA

 3%,   Digital Forensics

Gender of Students:

68%, Male

32%, Female

Academic Standing:

78.5%, Undergraduate

• 8 Sophomore

• 6 Juniors

• 9 Seniors

21.5%, Graduate

• 5 Masters

• 1 Phd

Student Testimonies:

"Sandia CTF was really amazing given how the they introduce you with the tools, make you go through a quick demo and learn while performing! Every Challenge stacks upon itself and by the end of it you would find yourself learning something new! A really great way to break into the world of CTF's!"

- Arturo, Computer Science Undergraduate

 "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."

-Kaitlyn Muston, Information Systems Undergraduate

“The Sandia CTF was a great experience. It was a lot of fun learning all about the tools they use, and then getting the chance to put it into practice to solve the CTF challenges. The challenges themselves were super engaging and well made, and really showed some of the process of Incident Response. Will definitely attend next year!”

- Danilo Rodriguez - Ortiz, Computer Science Undergraduate

"As someone being very new cybersecurity and even more so on CTFs, the Sandia CTF was really enjoyable and gives a glimpse of how modern Incident Response operates"

- Hendry Lai, Computer Science Undergraduate

"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 Parsom, Computer Science Graduate PhD

"I thought Sandia did a great job this year hosting the TracerFire Event. The instructors were very friendly and supportive, obliging to answer most questions and helped lead me in the right direction to find a solution to a specific problem. Although this was my first ever CTF competition, I initially found most of the material daunting. But the instructors provided a great learning environment as well as my peers. I hope to participate in this Sandia again next year, and hopefully win."

- Mateo Guerrero, Computer Science Undergraduate