2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This paper presents the International Cybersecurity Exercise (ICE), now named the International Cyber Defense Challenge (ICDC), a collaborative initiative started in 2022 and led by Iowa State University in partnership with the Iowa National Guard, Kosovo Security Forces, and academic institutions from the U.S., Kosovo, Northern Macedonia, and Albania. Modeled after the university's highly successful Cyber Defense Competitions (CDC), which have been held since 2005, ICE integrates U.S. high school, community college, and university teams with collegiate teams from overseas. The event engages students in a realistic, high-stakes cyber defense exercise. Teams defend networks against adversarial attacks in a virtual environment that simulates critical infrastructure scenarios, such as power grid protection.

The international exercise emphasizes active learning through a defense and survivability exercise following the CDC framework. Teams design security architectures and defend them against adversarial attacks while maintaining operational services. Leveraging a custom-built cyber range hosted by Iowa State University, the exercise enables continuous training and experiential learning outside competition periods.

This paper details the learning materials developed to support participants, how the event operates, and the outcomes from three years of competition. The exercise also strengthened international collaboration, leveraging National Guard State Partnership Programs to connect educational and military communities across borders.

Following the CDC framework, the exercise employs a design, build, and defend model in which participants construct and safeguard their networks against adversarial attacks while maintaining operational services. This paper outlines the structure of the exercise, including the scenario design process, the integration of real-world challenges, and the pedagogical goals behind fostering experiential learning and cybersecurity skills.

Plans for the exercise include expanding to additional Adriatic countries and integrating their respective National Guard units, further enhancing international collaboration through the U.S. State Partnership Program. The exercise has proven to be a scalable and effective model for cybersecurity education, bridging academic institutions and military units to develop a robust, globally aware cybersecurity workforce.

The results underscore the effectiveness of experiential learning in cybersecurity education and demonstrate the potential of the ICE to serve as a scalable model for workforce development and global collaboration in engineering education. This work contributes to the growing research on innovative curriculum design and experiential learning strategies within electrical and computer engineering (ECE) programs.