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After hours of cool-headed puzzling and problem-solving, Hunter Wittenborn, a student from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, emerged as champion of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) 2024 CyberForce® Conquer the Hill® — Reign Edition Competition. Hosted by DOE’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) and DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory, Wittenborn competed with some of the brightest young minds studying cybersecurity to tackle a series of challenges in a video game style escape room.
The Reign Edition competition is part of DOE’s CyberForce® Program, which aims to develop the next generation of cyber defenders for the energy sector. Through hands-on individual and team competitions, the program highlights the nexus of critical infrastructure and cybersecurity.
In this year’s contest, 149 students from 77 universities and colleges entered a virtual escape room to help their character, DUDE, conquer five levels of varying technical skills and challenges in order to escape. Not every challenge provided immediate progression or support and students had to use cybersecurity, computer science, mathematics and critical thinking skills to traverse to the next level. Wittenborn helped DUDE escape all five levels in the fastest time — 6 hours, 42 minutes and 11 seconds — and was declared the Reign champion.
“Ideally, these students can take what they learned in a competition and use that experience to build confidence within this field.” — Amanda Theel, Argonne National Laboratory
“I am excited to see another successful Conquer the Hill Reign competition and the ingenuity and hard work of this year’s competitors,” said Puesh M. Kumar, Director of CESER. “Competitions like Reign enhance skills and drive interest in joining the nation’s rising cyber energy workforce. Congratulations to the winner, Hunter Wittenborn from the University of Alabama in Huntsville!”
“Reign provides a unique and fun educational opportunity for students to absorb complex topics in a relatable way,” said Amanda Theel, national laboratory lead of the CyberForce Program and group leader of Workforce Development in Argonne’s Strategic Security Sciences division. “Ideally, these students can take what they learned in a competition and use that experience to build confidence within this field.”
The CyberForce Program, through competitions, webinars, learning resources and career fairs, strives to inspire and develop more cyber defenders for the nation’s energy workforce. The program focuses on cyber skill training at the intersections of operational technology and information technology, simulates real-world energy scenarios within competitions, and makes critical thinking and soft skills key components of its offerings. The overall goal is to build cyber skills and professional interest in the next generation of cyber defenders.
The need for workers with sophisticated cyber skills is increasing. From January 2023 to January 2024, there were only 82 workers available for every 100 cybersecurity job openings in the U.S., according to 2023 CyberSeek data from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Programs like CyberForce are essential to address this workforce gap.
The CyberForce Program began in 2016 with the team-based CyberForce Competition® and has since expanded to include webinars, virtual career fairs and an online workforce portal. These resources help students develop skills, find job opportunities, and stay informed about upcoming events and training. The program focuses on cyber skill training at the intersections of operational technology and information technology, simulates real-world energy scenarios within competitions, and makes critical thinking and soft skills key components of its offerings.
For more information about the CyberForce Program and upcoming events, please visit the CyberForce website.
Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology by conducting leading-edge basic and applied research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://energy.gov/science.
