DOE Cyberforce Competition experience - Presentation

In November 2025, I participated in a Cyberforce Competition -- a collegiate cyber competition held in Tinley Park, Illinois by US Dept. of Energy. Out of 93 teams from across the United States, my team was placed 9th.

In this competition, I was responsible for:

• Building web apps and maintaining uptime
• Securing the web applications through:
  • Conducting penetration tests
  • Patching the applications
• Detecting any potential backdoors that might've been planted in our environment by the competition organizers
• Working with the team to ensure that the these efforts align with the team's overall goals.

The video below showcases my, and my team member's experience during the competition. This presentation only covers the fundamentals of the competition, and not detailed information about our internal processes for confidentiality reasons.

I also posted about this on my LinkedIn.

This presentation was recorded at ESL Global Cybersecurity Institute at Rochester Institute of Technology during RITSEC's general meeting session.