The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced July 28 the second annual President’s Cup Cybersecurity Competition. Registration is open to any Federal Executive branch employee, including Department of Defense (DoD) and uniformed service members, with a knack for cybersecurity. Individuals can either register solo or as part of a team.
“The Federal cybersecurity workforce is a strategic asset that protects our citizens, homeland, and the American way of life,” said CISA Director Chris Krebs. “CISA is proud and excited to lead the second annual President’s Cup Cybersecurity Competition to measure the knowledge, skills, and abilities of the diverse cybersecurity talent within government.”
The competition was born out of a May 2019 Executive Order, which called for an annual interagency effort to “identify, challenge, and reward the government’s best personnel supporting cybersecurity and cyber excellence.” The contest is run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and CISA, with help from the Department of Energy (DoE) and its National Laboratories. The competition uses the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) Cybersecurity Workforce Framework, and will test participants on a range of issues, including cyber defense, cyber exploitation, and forensics.
Following last year’s competition, CISA has made some modifications to the program.
“We incorporated feedback from last year by adding specialty tracks for individual competitors and made other improvements to make the competition more challenging, engaging, and rewarding,” said Krebs.
Now the individual competition is divided into two tracks, with one track being incident response and forensics and the other being exploitation analysis and vulnerability assessment analysis. Teams will be limited to five individuals from one agency and will face challenges from across the NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework.
The first two rounds of competition will take place virtually, while the final round will take place at CISA facilities in Arlington, Va. Registration for teams is open until Aug. 14 and for individuals until Aug. 28.
