Wednesday, January 21, 2026
HomeTechnologyDepartment of Defense continues to dominate Presidents Cup competitors

Department of Defense continues to dominate Presidents Cup competitors


The Department of Defense as soon as once more received the President’s Cup Cybersecurity Competition. The fifth annual occasion, hosted by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, featured army personnel from the Army and Marine Corps and groups of Department of Defense professionals who received particular person and workforce competitions.

But non-public establishments are starting to fill the hole.

CISA will conclude its fifth annual competitors finals on April 26, and the Office of the Director of National Cyber ​​Affairs will acknowledge the winners at a ceremony on the White House on May 20.

Track A outcomes of defensive operations:

Army Maj. Nolan Miles, Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Major Michael Torres, Air Force Sergeant Major Sears Schultz

“We primarily targeted on the cyber protection incident responder and cyber protection forensic analyst positions,” Harpin stated. “The competitors had a number of challenges, together with recovering from a ransomware assault. We additionally needed to examine community visitors to search out an eight-digit code for a dam system’s floodgates. We wished to create a few of these real-world conditions amongst our opponents.”

Track B outcomes for assault operations:

Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Michael Torres Air Force Col. Jacob Kreuse

“The challenges they needed to overcome for this 12 months’s competitors included leveraging SCADA methods on a spacecraft. “It will verify and supply a flag if the spacecraft’s reactor has correctly overheated,” he stated. “This was truly one in all my private favourite challenges of the 12 months for him. In one other case, a person needed to analyze a public GitLab web site, creating steady integration and steady supply pipes. line might have been compromised.”

Team competitors outcomes:

Artificial Intelligence — That workforce included members of the Army and Air Force. Four of his members had been additionally on his 2022 profitable workforce. Touchgrass.txt — That workforce included members of the Pentagon’s cyberwarfare extremists — That workforce included members of the Navy

Harpin stated the workforce competitors was one of many closest ever, with Artificially Intelligent profitable by simply 60 factors over Touchgrass.txt out of a complete of greater than 30,000 factors.

“Our workforce competitors is split into two days with finals. The first day integrated an industrial management system escape room developed by the Idaho National Laboratory. It was designed to offer them a special expertise. “It was one thing new that we introduced on this 12 months,” he stated. “In ICS Escape Room, they really touched on some {hardware}. It was a fictional story about an insider risk the place a chemical firm is acquired by a brand new firm. So this The guys weren’t too completely happy. They created an enormous mess within the firm, which is the identify of the escape room. The aim was to revive the system and confirm that it might full automated batches. We additionally needed to restore the human-machine interface show and digital actuality goggles contained in the escape room, so it was an excellent new expertise.”

Harpin stated that is one space the place the civilian company workforce stood out. He stated the workforce, dubbed the “Justice League” by the FBI, was the one workforce to outlive in the course of the competitors.

Harpin stated CISA is already planning to host Presidents Cup 6 subsequent 12 months. He stated there are three issues the Planning Commission will take away from this 12 months’s contest.

“One is to repeatedly incorporate new environments, resembling industrial management system (ICS) escape rooms. How can we give finalists new experiences that even compete for mushy abilities like communication? That’s why I wished to shout that to the FBI workforce within the escape room. They all the time needed to inform us the puzzles they solved and the passwords they discovered, however they wrote extra on the whiteboard than the opposite groups. ” he stated. “We additionally need to discover {hardware} challenges that present new experiences. Another factor is to repeatedly obtain suggestions from individuals. It was actually helpful for us to have open conversations with individuals. That’s how we develop the competitors yearly.”

Another attainable change for future competitions is tips on how to acknowledge particular person or workforce efforts exterior of the winner’s circle, such because the quickest time to unravel a problem or the highest performing “new” competitor.

Harpin stated subsequent 12 months’s contest is scheduled to start in January and run by means of April.

Meanwhile, CISA is posting this 12 months’s puzzles and challenges on the President’s Cup web site so everybody can take a look at their talent set, he stated.

“There are over 200 challenges for the time being and all challenges used within the Presidents Cup 5 Finals might be obtainable within the coming weeks. I’m posting the answer information on CISA’s GitHub repository, and I’ll admit it is simply me after I play the problem, however it’s an excellent studying instrument,” Harpin stated. “Even with a step-by-step information, it’s nonetheless a studying course of to grasp tips on how to carry out many of those duties.” We sit up for seeing it develop and proceed for use. All of its supplies might be discovered on the CISA web site.

Harpin stated the train space is open to federal staff and the GitHub repository is open to the general public.

“We plan to carry extra workshops utilizing Presidents Cup supplies on the NICCE convention in Dallas, Texas in June, the place we might be internet hosting extra workshops utilizing Presidents Cup supplies to develop the cybersecurity workforce and supply alternatives for others. We’re going to have a workshop known as Using Games to Motivate Retention.” We tried out some challenges and considered tips on how to construct them on prime of open supply functions. ” he stated. “We need to have the ability to scale it out. How can we do this for extra of the general public and for state and native governments? We’re exploring alternative ways we will do this with the content material we construct throughout the Residents Cup competitors.”

Copyright © 2024 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This web site is just not directed to customers throughout the European Economic Area.



Source hyperlink

RELATED ARTICLES

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Most Popular