Seventeen teams from colleges and universities throughout the Pacific Northwest converged on the PNNL campus Saturday to put their cyber skills to the test. The event was the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) fifth CyberForce Competition™. The event, held simultaneously at 10 of the DOE’s National Laboratories across the United States, challenged a total of 105 college teams and more than 500 students to defend a simulated energy infrastructure from cyberattacks.

At PNNL, we were pleased to host 17 teams and approximately 85 students. At the end of the day, team members from Oregon State University (OSU) in Corvallis, Ore., took top regional honors. It was the second consecutive year that the OSU team prevailed at the PNNL venue, while the teams from Columbia Basin College in Pasco and Western Washington University also ranked in the top 20 nationally.

Regional colleges and universities that sent teams to compete at CyberForce 2019 at PNNL included: Central Washington University; Columbia Basin College; Eastern Washington University; Green River College; Highline College; Northeastern University, Seattle; Oregon State University; University of Idaho, Moscow; University of Utah; University of Washington, Bothell; University of Washington, Seattle; University of Washington, Tacoma; Washington State University, Pullman; Washington State University, Tri-Cities; Western Washington University; Whatcom Community College; and Whitworth University.