Cybersecurity Team Headed To Nationals After Regional Win

An Eastern Washington University cybersecurity team has won the regional NCAE Cyber Games for the fifth consecutive year.

Now, EWU students are preparing to compete at the NCAE Cyber Games National Invitational in Tampa, Florida later this month. There they hope to bring home a national championship, as an Eastern team did in 2023.

The National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity describes the NCAE Cyber Games as a combination of capture the flag and a “red-versus-blue infrastructure competition.” A team works to defend its systems from the NCAE Cyber Games red team. While the red team is the opponent on competition day, individual collegiate teams vie for the top score against other teams.

Held virtually last month, the NCAE competition regional competition involved 12 collegiate teams. It’s the seventh competition in which EWU’s cybersecurity students have participated this season, with top-five finishes in four of those events.

The team’s faculty advisor, Stu Steiner, is an associate professor of computer science and director of the EWU Cybersecurity Institute. “In the last five years, our program has grown, and our students are performing at the highest levels,” Steiner says. “This is all due to the dedication of the faculty and the support from the university. The students are incredible, and I’m so very proud to be their coach.”

The NCAE Cyber Games National Invitational is Saturday, April 18.

The competition comes just weeks after the National Security Agency designated EWU as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations, making Eastern the 22^nd university nationwide to attain the prestigious designation and the only one in the Pacific Northwest to do so.