CyberForce® Program

The growing cybersecurity workforce need in the U.S. is in excess of 410,000.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) seeks to enhance the next generation of cyber defenders for the energy sector through their CyberForce® Program. The CyberForce® Program seeks to develop operational technology (OT) and enhance information technology (IT) skills through hands-on training, competitions, resources, webinars, and career development. Argonne National Laboratory leads program competitions with support from DOE’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER).

CyberForce Competition®

Capitalizing on the expertise of Laboratory staff who have led cyber competitions, DOE hosts interactive, scenario- based competitions to give teams a hands-on cybersecurity experience and raise awareness of the nexus between critical infrastructure and cybersecurity.

The CyberForce Competition® is open to collegiate individuals who wish to test their acumen on various computer science and cyber-related topics, which map to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) Framework’s specific knowledge, skills, and abilities.

A typical CyberForce Competition® has a Blue Team (defenders) that protects a network infrastructure from the Red Team (attackers). The Blue Team is responsible for securing and hardening their competition infrastructure, while making it available for the Green Team (simulating the end users). The Red Team consists of industry professionals who work to cause cyber destruction to the Blue Team’s network infrastructure. The Blue Team is also responsible for protecting their industrial control system (ICS) (often with outdated software that cannot be patched) from the Red Team. Participants need to come up with innovative ways to protect their ICS and their system architecture while system administrators build vulnerabilities into participants’ architecture. Additionally, throughout the competition, competitors have daily tasks known as anomalies which simulate tasks they may see in their jobs, such as forensics file and coding.

Conquer the Hill® Series

To promote a more inclusive environment and continuously strengthen the skills of future defenders, DOE works with Argonne National Laboratory and others to offer the Conquer the Hill Series. These virtual competitions provide individual students the ability to bolster key skill sets throughout each year. The participant with the most points at the end of each edition is that edition’s Conqueror of the Hill.

ADVENTURE EDITION

Adventure Edition is a virtual, individual mission that tests participants’ cyber knowledge, skills, and abilities through the use of anomalies. At the start of the competition, students have eight hours to complete as many challenges as they can. Challenges are mapped to the NIST NICE Framework and range in difficulty level. Competitors have the opportunity to answer questions in any order they wish.

REIGN EDITION

Reign Edition is a virtual experience like no other, as this competition transpires within a 2D dungeon crawler platformer game. Individual competitors hack through server rooms, interact with AI robots, decrypt secret messages, and navigate their way throughout a laboratory to fulfill their quest. However, not everything is as it seems, and they must use their wits and cunning to progress through rooms of increasing difficulty to ultimately unravel the truth. Participants are tested on their knowledge of cybersecurity, computer science, mathematics, cryptography, and critical thinking skills in general.

COMMAND EDITION

Command Edition is the newest of the individual competitions. Competitors enter virtual, task-based scenarios and need to complete each task in order to move to increasingly difficult tasks. Each task has specific requirements the competitor must complete. There are two difficulty levels and participants are placed in a level based on a pre-event skill set assessment.

Webinars

CyberForce® webinars are open to the public and are held on the second Wednesday of the month. Topics range from CyberForce® Program details to cybersecurity-specific trends. These webinars are recorded and held on the CyberForce® website for future viewing.

Virtual Career Fairs

The CyberForce® Program hosts two virtual career fairs which invite participants of the program and members of the public to join exhibitors from industry and government in networking, interviewing, and speaking about jobs and internships within a wide range of organizations.