University of Central Florida Wins DOE's 2018 CyberForce Competition

December 3, 2018

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced University of Central Florida from Orlando, Florida as the national winner of DOE’s 2018 CyberForce Competition™. Sponsored by DOE’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER), the CyberForce Competition is DOE’s fourth cyber defense competition designed to develop the next generation of cybersecurity professionals to help defend and bolster our nation’s critical energy infrastructure and ensure our energy security.

“The energy infrastructure we depend upon as a Nation is under the constant threat of cyberattacks,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry in a video broadcast to competitors across DOE’s national laboratories. “As the Sector-Specific Agency for cybersecurity in the energy sector, guarding against those threats is my highest priority, and this competition is becoming a key element in developing our next generation of cyber warriors.”

This year’s competition featured approximately 70 teams representing 24 states and Puerto Rico, with participants ranging from undergraduate freshmen to Ph.D. candidates. Argonne National Laboratory was the lead lab with participation from six other National Labs, including: Brookhaven National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories.
The CyberForce Competition challenged college and university students with defending a simulated oil transportation network, a power delivery system, and a high-performance computing system against attacks by experts at the National Labs, the private sector, and the National Guard. The challenge was augmented by anomalies and constraints designed to replicate those commonly found in real world systems...

Read entire press release at Energy.gov.