CyberPatriot Competition for Middle and High School Students

​CyberPatriot is the National Youth Cyber Education Program.  At the center of CyberPatriot is the National Youth Cyber Defense Competition. The competition puts teams of high school and middle school students in the position of newly hired IT professionals tasked with managing the network of a small company. In the rounds of competition, teams are given a set of virtual images that represent operating systems and are tasked with finding cybersecurity vulnerabilities within the images and hardening the system while maintaining critical services in a six hour period.  Teams compete for the top placement within their state and region, and the top teams in the nation earn all-expenses paid trips to Washington, DC for the National Finals Competition where they can earn national recognition and scholarship money.​

Each CyberPatriot team requires a coach, usually a teacher or adult leader of a team-sponsoring organization. Coaches need no special technical background, and coaching a CyberPatriot team is not restricted to instructors of technical subjects like math or science. Any teacher or youth organization leader with the desire to help students learn something new, exciting and relevant can be a great CyberPatriot coach!

In addition to the coach, a team is made up of two to six students (5 competitors, 1 alternate). Students must be registered with the CyberPatriot Program office and must be enrolled with the school or organization they are competing with. All cyber teaching materials are provided, and there is no course or skill prerequisite for the program. Any student with the interest can join a team and be successful.

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