Abstract
This paper describes how the Department of Energy’s CyberForce Competition™ uses anomalies to map collegiate teams’ comprehension of different topics in cybersecurity. The competition is currently in its fourth iteration with a fifth planned in November 2019. Anomalies are challenges that collegiate teams must solve in order to receive points and vary in nature, timing, and skillset. All successful teams are able to manage the scale and prioritize which anomalies to complete. This paper identifies which NICE pillars students scored in the upper percentile, and which topics students averaged a lower score. These results may help educators in creating training programs, classes and curriculum to help close these knowledge gaps.
Open Access License Notice:
This article is © its author(s) and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Beginning with Volume 13 (2026), this license is included directly within all published PDFs. For earlier articles, a cover page has been added to indicate the correct licensing terms. Any legacy copyright or pricing statements appearing within the PDF reflect prior print production workflows and do not represent the Journal’s current open access policy. For full details, please see the Journal’s License Terms.