As the year comes to a close, we're finishing strong with our final public sector and K-12 outreach and educational events, while looking forward to how we will continue to bring even more connection and resources to our many communities in the year to come.  

Thank you for joining us for a very substantial year in enhancing cyber resilience in our beautiful state! 

Cybersecurity Education Opportunities for Oregon's Computer Science Teachers and Their Students

Teachers can find forms to request workshops, school field trips, and customized campus tours for 2026 online →

Reza Rejaie, OCCoE Associate Director, attended the Oregon Computer Science Teacher Association’s Fall Conference to introduce the Nurturing Inclusive Cybersecurity Education (NICE) program at the University of Oregon. NICE offers free professional development to teachers, sends UO faculty and staff to schools to lead cybersecurity learning activities, organizes statewide Capture the Flag competitions, and welcomes groups of students to Eugene for customized campus tours.

+ University of Oregon Now Offers MS in Cybersecurity for Fall 2026

Deadline to apply is February 1st - more info to come!

STEM Community Fair at PSU for High School Students

In partnership with the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science at PSU, OCCoE will host a table to share information about our NW Cyber Camps with high schoolers from Portland Public Schools in their Career Technical Education programs. 

When: December 16, 2025 - 9:30am-11:50am

Where: Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science, EB Atrium - Portland State University - 1930 SW 4th Ave #500

Revamping After Three Final Cybersecurity Tabletop Exercises of 2025

Two of the three final events, hosted in partnership with LBL Cybersecurity, were in locations that we have not yet had the opportunity to visit for events: Prineville and Medford.  This allowed for resource sharing and networking with more rural public sector communities that are not often reached, an important part of our outreach goals for 2026.

The workshop by Cohesity during the Association of Oregon Counties Annual Conference gave participants a shorter, more accessible look into dealing with a cyber attack, empowering them with the knowledge to take the first steps in preparing with their counties.

OCCoE looks forward to further partnership with facilitators in collaboration with the State CISO's Office and OEM, as we continue to evolve tabletop exercises to fit a broader range of attendees in the public sector and provide the most up to date information possible for Oregonians combatting cyber attacks (be on the lookout for our revamped tabletop exercise at the SDAO Annual Conference in February!).

Reminder: 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!

Reminder: UO'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.

UO is also looking to connect their program students with a partner network of regional companies and agencies that offer cybersecurity services or products or have a major cybersecurity team and are interested in hosting cybersecurity students as interns or academic co-ops.  

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

Reminder: 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."

When you use the web, how do you know if you are connecting to your intended services (e.g., email, social media), and not adversarial imposters? The answer is the web public key infrastructure (PKI), which is an ecosystem of entities called certificate authorities (CAs) that verify the identity of web servers and vouch for them using digital certificates. 

This talk will cover some recent research that takes a holistic view of the web PKI, uncovering and characterizing new weaknesses in the web PKI that arise from the real-world, dynamic network environment that the web PKI is deployed in. 

Save the Date: February 6, 2026, our Research Seminar Series will start back up with PSU's Dr. John Acken.  

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