Strong showing by CS students in DOE hackathon
Strong showing by CS students in DOE hackathon Heading link
This fall, a team of undergraduate computer science students placed 16th out of 94 teams in the U.S. Department of Energy CyberForce® Competition.
The team, 0x1BADB002, included students Jacob Cohen, Kevin Cordero, Soham Gumaste, Michael Khan, Sam Stuckey, and Ethan Wong. They were tasked with hardening an intentionally insecure network of machines over the course of 12 days for the event.
The competition is part of a workforce development program sponsored by the Department of Energy (DOE) that seeks to “develop the next generation of cyber defenders for the energy sector” and raise awareness of the connection between cybersecurity and critical infrastructure.
In this contest, the network represented an offshore wind farm. The UIC team defended the network against red team hackers from national laboratories on competition day and ensured operations weren’t disrupted for the green team, which included wind farm employees. Along the way, the team had to detect and solve multiple cybersecurity quizzes.
In 2024, the CyberForce Program supported nearly 1,800 participants from 184 academic institutions in 42 states and the District of Columbia through four competitions.
To learn more about upcoming hackathons, research experiences for undergraduates, or internships, visit the student opportunities page on the computer science department’s website.