CyberForce® Competition
Who Can Participate: College and university students
Description: The Department of Energy’s CyberForce® Competition provides students a hands-on approach to balance security with usability to protect critical infrastructure. CyberForce® advances hands-on cyber education to college students and professionals, increases awareness of the connection between critical infrastructure and cybersecurity, and improves basic understanding of cybersecurity within a real-world scenario.
CyberPatriot
Who Can Participate: K-12 students
Description: The Air Force Academy’s (AFA) CyberPatriot Programs are designed to help students learn more about career opportunities in cybersecurity as well as other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. With competitions, cyber camps, education initiatives and more, CyberPatriot truly has something for everyone.
GenCyber
Who Can Participate: K-12 students and teachers
Description: Through the Department of Defense Cyber Exchange, GenCyber provides cybersecurity experiences for students and teachers at the secondary (K-12) level to help increase awareness of college and career pathway opportunities. GenCyber camps and programs are available across the country at no-cost for students and teachers interested in participating.
National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition
Who Can Participate: College and university students
Description: The National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC) is a team competition designed for students to perform administrative and protective duties and manage challenges for an existing network. Teams have identical hardware and software and are scored based on their ability to successfully detect and respond to threats.
National Cyber Cup
Who Can Participate: 4th-12th grade students
Description: Through the Cybersecurity Education and Training Assistance Program grant, CYBER.ORG hosts the annual National Cyber Cup, which is a capture-the-flag competition for students that focuses on various cybersecurity themes, situations, and challenges. Explore practice challenges from year’s past and be sure to sign up for upcoming National Cyber Cup competitions.
President’s Cup Cybersecurity Competition
Who Can Participate: Federal workforce
Description: CISA hosts the President’s Cup Cybersecurity Competition (PCCC) to identify, recognize, and reward the best cyber talent across the federal workforce. Participants are challenged to outthink and outwit their competitors in a series of tests that are based on real-world situations to expand cyber skills.
Social Engineering Competitions
Who Can Participate: High school, undergraduate, and graduate students
Description: CISA also helps sponsor Temple University’s Summer Social Engineering Competition (SEC), which offers students a unique opportunity to learn about social engineering through hands-on and engaging competitions. This year’s competition theme is Tax Scams and events will take place virtually on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. The events are open to high school, undergraduate, and graduate students in teams of two to four members.
Try Cyber Micro Challenges
Who Can Participate: Anyone
Description: Sponsored by CISA, Try Cyber is a web application that allows users to participate in 15-minute micro-challenges to gain hands-on experience with core workforce tasks related to NICE Framework Work Roles.
US Cyber Challenge
Who Can Participate: U.S. Citizens
Description: The US Cyber Challenge (USCC) is a program previously supported by the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate through a contract with the Center for Internet Security. USCC’s goal is to identify, attract, train, recruit, and place the next generation of cybersecurity professionals into the workforce. With cyber quests, capture-the-flag competitions, and cybersecurity camps, participants can demonstrate their knowledge in a variety of information security realms.
US Cyber Games®
Who Can Participate: Invited cyber athletes, ages 18-24
Description: The US Cyber Games® was founded by Katzcy in cooperation with the NICE program at the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST). CISA became a founding sponsor of the first ever US Cyber Team in 2021. Selection for the US Cyber Team is highly competitive, as cyber-athletes go through an experience akin to a football combine.
