CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURES&T Hackathon: Thwarting Emerging Threats to Critical Infrastructure

Published 25 May 2022

Threats against the U.S. critical infrastructure are not new—physical threats and natural disasters have challenged the U.S. critical infrastructure and their support systems time and time again. But the rapid development of new information and communication technologies, and their inevitable integration the into the U.S. critical infrastructure, bring with them the possibility of digital attacks and other new challenges that the United States must be ready to face.

In late March, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISAissued a warning that critical U.S. infrastructure sectors might be at risk of cyberattacks by Russian actors. Threats against the U.S. critical infrastructure are not new—physical threats and natural disasters have challenged the U.S. critical infrastructure and their support systems time and time again. However, the rapid development of new information and communication technologies, and their inevitable integration into our critical infrastructure, bring with them the possibility of digital attacks and other new challenges that the United States must be ready to face.

To help the country thwart potential cyberattacks, the Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) recently collaborated with the Center for Accelerating Operational Efficiency (CAOE), a DHS Center of Excellence (COE) led by Arizona state University, to convene subject matter experts (SMEs) and students from four other university-led DHS Centers of Excellence around the country to tackle real-life problem scenarios and identify practical solutions to current critical infrastructure risks and emerging threats. The COEs included the Critical Infrastructure Resilience Institute (CIRI) led by the University of Illinois; Criminal Investigations and Network Analysis Center (CINA) led by George Mason University; Maritime Security Center (MSC) led by the Stevens Institute of Technology; and National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center (NCITE) led by the University of Nebraska, Omaha. 

The third annual Grand Challenge Hackathon, held both in-person and virtually in late February, paired homeland security, critical infrastructure, criminal investigations, cybersecurity, and counterterrorism professionals with students in these fields, providing them with an immersive specialized learning environment and offering them opportunities to analyze and solve real-life homeland security problem sets. In doing so, the students were encouraged to consider pursuing professions in the homeland security science and engineering fields.  

“As a COE, one of our primary missions is to provide cutting-edge educational opportunities to our students, and to encourage them to apply what they learn in the classroom to current events and issues that are impacting homeland security,” said CAOE Director Ross Maciejewski. “In order to do this, we’ve created and implemented a number of programs, one of which is our collaborative annual hackathon, which started in 2019.”

“These hackathons are unique, in that they offer participating students the opportunity to really develop their critical research, communications, and teambuilding skills, while also broadening their understanding of the Department of Homeland Security mission and how it operates,” said S&T Program Manager Eleanore Hajian.