Business teachers who have students looking for an engaging way to develop and improve their Cyber Security skills should invite their student to participate in an upcoming CyberPatriot National Youth Cyber Defense Competition. The California Community Colleges Doing What Matters program has funding available to support the participation of middle school and high school teams.

Teams can be formed anytime during the school year and you don’t have to be a computer expert to lead your team. This program is for all students interested in developing leadership and organizational skills while learning what it takes to work as a cybersecurity professional.

What is CyberPatriot?

CyberPatriot is the National Youth Cyber Education Program. The competition puts teams of high school and middle school students in the position of newly hired IT professionals in charge of managing the network of a small company. Click here to watch a brief video.

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.

Teams compete for the top placement within their state and region, and the top teams in the nation earn all-expenses paid trips to Baltimore, MD for the National Finals Competition, where they can earn national recognition and scholarship money.

How to Get Started:

For step-by-step instructions on how to start a CyberPatriot team any time of the year, visit the California CyberSecurity Education Center website. You’ll find a complete “Get Started” package which includes system requirements, competition details, training modules and much more.

For more information and to request assistance, contact the CyberPatroit team at: cyberpatriot@ict-dm.net.