# Cyber 9/12 competition simulates Volt Typhoon grid attack

Published: 2025-12-15 · Severity: low
Canonical: https://vorant.io/reports/5ba594b7-e2b8-5284-9715-929c310553c8/cyber-9-12-competition-simulates-volt-typhoon-grid-attack

> Atlantic Council's annual policy competition had students respond to a fictional scenario where China's Volt Typhoon breached US electric utilities, impacting military bases across five states.

The Atlantic Council's Cyber Statecraft Initiative and Columbia University held the tenth annual Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge on October 10-11, 2025, in New York City. Over twenty student teams from ten states participated in a virtual competition simulating a national security crisis. Students acted as policy advisors to the US National Security Council, developing response strategies for a fictional cyberattack.

The scenario centered on Volt Typhoon, a Chinese state-sponsored threat group, breaching multiple US electric utilities and impacting critical military infrastructure including Air Force bases in Illinois, Missouri, California, Hawaii, and Guam. The fictional attack exploited vulnerabilities in legacy SCADA and ICS equipment, as well as unpatched VPNs and firewalls. The interconnected nature of the power grid caused cascading failures that plunged large portions of the central United States into darkness, demonstrating how single intrusions can trigger widespread disruption.

The competition provided students with hands-on experience in policy analysis, strategic thinking, and crisis communications while developing the next generation of cybersecurity leaders. Participants emphasized the importance of understanding technical, political, economic, and diplomatic dimensions of cyber crises, drawing on real-world frameworks from agencies like CISA and lessons from incidents such as SolarWinds and NotPetya. Judges noted that top-performing teams excelled at distinguishing confirmed facts from assumptions and clearly articulating known unknowns under pressure.

## Mentioned in this report

- Threat actors: Volt Typhoon

Source reporting: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/cyber-9-12-project/from-simulation-to-strategy-how-cyber-9-12-prepares-students-for-real-world-cyber-crises

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