A busy fall season continues on for OCCoE, as we highlight the success of recent events and share more to come.  Thank you for joining us in our mission to increase cyber resilience in our beautiful state! 

Fall Tabletop Exercises Reached Nearly 100 Participants - More to Come!

From just September to October, OCCoE hosted 3 cybersecurity tabletop exercises for the public sector at the Oregon Association of Government IT Management Fall Conference,  the League of Oregon Cities Annual Conference, and the Oregon Cyber Resilience Summit (above).  Each of these events had an impressive turn out, totaling 98 officials and staff from state, local, special district, K-12, higher ed, and more entities in Oregon.  Through collaborative simulations and discussions, participants left better resourced to enhance cyber resilience in their organization, with 82% reporting that the exercise helped them feel more prepared for a cyber incident.  The events also allowed for building connections and maintaining networks of support between various Oregon entities.  

See below for more upcoming cybersecurity exercises in Medford and Eugene.  

Missed Out?  More Upcoming Exercises this Fall 

November 13, 2025: Medford, OR - 8:30am-4:30pm 

This free joint tabletop exercise brings together K-12 leaders, Special District professionals, and Local Government officials for a collaborative day of hands-on learning and preparedness. 

Facilitated by cybersecurity and emergency management experts, the session will simulate real-world cyber incident scenarios that require cross-team and cross-sector communication, coordination, and decision-making, leaving participants able to identify vulnerabilities and take actionable steps to improve incident response plans.  

Breakfast, snacks, and lunch Included, open to all in pubic sector. 

November 19, 2025: Eugene, OR - 6:00pm-8:30pm

Hosted by OCCoE in conjunction with the Association of Oregon Counties Annual Conference, this free Ransomware Resilience Workshop by Cohesity simulates a ransomware attack in real-time, where participants will prepare to help their organizations make fast, effective decisions based on real-life scenarios.

With this exposure to the experiences and potential implications of a ransomware attack, county officials/staff (and beyond!) will be empowered with the knowledge of their options and state resources during an attack.  This will allow participants to start identifying potential gaps in their current incident response plans to ensure they have resilient cybersecurity measures.

Dinner and refreshments included, open to all in public sector. 

Professional Certificate in Building Cyber Resilience Application Open!  

Apply by December 7th for one of 40 no-cost spots in the Certificate in Building Cyber Resilience for Oregon's state, local, territorial and tribal governments and agencies!

This program is highly collaborative and will use a cohort-based case study approach to learn about common cyber risks; how to identify, assess, and communicate cyber risk; and how to conduct the first step in mitigating threats through a risk assessment. A deep technical background isn’t required, and technical concepts will be explained through the course of 12 weekly sessions.

Need Affordable Cybersecurity Services? University of Oregon's TSOC is Ready for Clients

The Teaching Security Operations Center (TSOC) is a university-based cybersecurity program designed to provide real-world monitoring and response using AI-integrated industry leading EDR services. Staffed by security engineers and supervised student analysts, TSOC combines education with service to protect organizations across the state of Oregon against evolving threats.

Why Choose TSOC? 

MS-ISAC Statewide Membership Program Now Available

Through the state's Enterprise Information Services and Cyber Security Services (EIS/CSS), Oregon is now enrolled in a statewide membership program with the Multi-State Information Sharing & Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) to provide cybersecurity services, tools, resources, and networking at no cost to eligible organizations.

On top of MS-ISACs standard benefits to SLTTs (see slide 9 in Webinar Slides below), the program includes a dedicated collaboration space for MS-ISAC members, featuring a private community exclusively for the State of Oregon. This private community enables cybersecurity professionals across Oregon to connect, share resources, and collaborate on initiatives that strengthen statewide cyber resilience.

See slide 23 below to register through your organization.  Refunds are available for organizations that have already purchased an MS-ISAC membership.  

More state guidance on the EIS/CSS website.

Success of First Annual Oregon Youth Cyber Con Leads to 2026 Plans

Fifty high school students showed up at PCC Sylvania on a non-school day, curious about the world of work and their career pathway options. Ten champions from education and industry offered insight, advice, and perspectives in breakout sessions. Thanks to these volunteer presenters, students learned about critical infrastructure, red team and blue team objectives, social engineering, ransomware, ethical hacking, and more.

We loved that several teens have already volunteered to help organize the 2026 Cyber Con. If you want to join the planning effort or be a presenter, reach out to occoe@pdx.edu. 

OCCoE's Research Seminar Series showcases exciting cybersecurity research taking place at each of our founding institutions.

Reminder: November 7, 2025, UO's Dr. Suyash Gupta will be presenting virtually on "HotStuff-1: Linear Consensus with One-Phase Speculation."

In this talk, Dr. Gupta will introduce his recent work, presented at SIGMOD 2025. Dr. Gupta's team designed a new BFT consensus protocol, HotStuff-1, that improves the latency of HotStuff-2 by two network-hops while maintaining linear communication complexity against faults. Additionally, HotStuff-1 incorporates an incentive-compatible leader rotation regime that motivates leaders to commit consensus decisions promptly.

Looking ahead: December 5, 2025, OSU's Zane Ma will be presenting virtually on "Penetrating the PKI Blinders: Examining the web PKI through an internet-wide lens."

If you'd like to attend a seminar, please email us at occoe@pdx.edu to receive the link!