The cybersecurity workforce gap of 3.1 million cannot be filled overnight; however, working with schools and encouraging younger generations to join the field will help in improving this number. (ISC)² is proud to support efforts that encourage the growth of the industry, including the U.S. Department of Energy’s CyberForce Competition^TM.

Students participating in 2019 CyberForce Competition.

The CyberForce Competition is a realistic cyber defense competition providing a hands-on approach to understanding threats, vulnerabilities and consequences. Participants use interactive, scenario-based events where they solve problems using methods, practices, strategies, policies and ethics.

Through the CyberForce Competition, the DOE has worked to increase hands-on cyber education to college students and professionals, awareness into the critical infrastructure and cybersecurity nexus, and basic understanding of cybersecurity within a real-world scenario.

Participants must battle real-world scenarios, like keeping energy safe and water pumping to homes to keep society moving; however, in reality these systems are often old and outdated, so they must determine the best response to each scenario without updating systems or breaking them.

“They have to balance keeping their system from being attacked while still maintaining a user-friendly website so customers can pay their bill,” said Amanda Joyce, group leader for the CyberForce Competition. “It must be a good user experience and sustainable long-term. For example, implementing a multi-factor authentication 10 step process might be a great strategy but would be a horrible user experience.”

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the competition, which is normally an eight hour in-person event, was held virtually with more than 200 participants. Organizers have plans to make future competitions even bigger.

As a sponsor of the competition, we were proud to provide 10 winners with vouchers for (ISC)² official training courses, having provided these vouchers for the past four competitions.

College students interested in participating in the next competition can visit https://cyberforcecompetition.com/ for more details.