The state Department of Revenue won the 1st Annual Cyber Escape Room competition at the state Office of CyberSecurity.
"I thought that the Cyber Escape Room was a great way to demonstrate some of the risks related to physical security. I had a lot of fun with it," said Sean Steiger-McRae, a member of the three-person DOR team that reached the final stage of the escape room with the fastest time - 24 minutes.
The Department of Agricultural came in second and WaTech placed third. Overall, 48 people from more than a dozen different agencies took part. Team times ranged from 24 to 38 minutes. No team this year was able to solve the escape room's final puzzle.
The Office of CyberSecurity's escape room challenged players to solve a variety of high-tech and low-tech puzzles to uncover clues needed to access information on a laptop. The purpose of the competition was to heighten awareness about common bad practices many people fall into when it comes to securing their digital information.
"What a great team-building activity," said Erin Jesky, with the state Department of Ecology. Jesky was part of a four-member team from Ecology that competed.
"Each of us had a critical part in working out the puzzles. It reinforced our team's collaborative problem-solving skills. We had so much fun, we had to think of some word puzzle games to play on the car ride back to our office to keep the group-solve action going!" Jesky said.
Due to popular request, the Office of CyberSecurity plans to take the Cyber Escape Room on the road soon to allow multiple teams at different state agencies participate and increase their cybersecurity awareness. For more information, please contact Jennifer Somnis at jennifer.somnis@watech.wa.gov
ECY Team from left to right: Danielle Klenak, Erin Jesky, Sarah Sage, Janna Ryan
AGR Team from left to right: Ed Thompson, Timothy Valdez, Ian Kremer. (Josh McMeel is partially in the picture, behind Valdez)
WaTech Team: Debbie Hoxit (writing), Mark Quimby (red shirt), Scott West (dark shirt), Ryan Koval (red vest).