Air Force Association CyberPatriot and CyberCamps
CyberPatriot
CyberPatriot 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. 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.
- Audience: Cadets, working in teams of 6
- Resources:
- CyberPatriot Playbook: An introduction into CyberPatriot operations from the perspective of Civil Air Patrol Cyber Programs.
Teams consist of between 2 and 6 cadets competing in either the Middle School or All Service Division.
449 Cadet Teams competed in season XIV.
2023-2024 bi-weekly coaches meetings will start in September. Please contact Maj Blatchley for the conference call information (wblatchley@cap.gov).
Download the past bi-weekly coaches meeting recordings.
Microsoft Training Materials
In order to train on Windows images, it is necessary to build virtual machines for your team to use. Microsoft provides trial versions of their products that can be used. The following links to Microsoft will allow you to register and download Microsoft Windows 10 and Windows Server products. For Windows 10, you will want to install the Windows 10 Pro version. For the servers, you will want to install the servers according to what CyberPatriot will identify as the version that will be used during competition.
Air Force Association CyberCamps
The Air Force Association has CyberCamps through the summer for groups to introduce students to cyber security concepts and prepare them for their first CyberPatriot competition. They have a standard camp as well as an advanced camp. The standard camp is for students and cadets who have no previous cyber security or CyberPatriot experience while the advanced camp is for students who have some experience and want to learn additional concepts.
The camp is designed around a four hour day with lecture material and hands on lab learning Monday through Thursday. Friday is a mini CyberPatriot competition designed to reinforce the material that was learned during the week. The camps can be held in-person or virtually.
The AFA has also approved participation of non-CAP members in the NHQ-sponsored CyberCamps which may be used for STEM outreach and for informing more people about cyber security and CAP.
2024 NHQ-Sponsored CyberCamp Weeks
The 2024 AFA CyberCamp registration is not yet open for CAP units (squadron, group, wing, region) to host an AFA CyberCamp.
If you wish to participate in a CyberCamp, you can gather more information about the over camp content and structure from the CyberPatriot web site at https://www.uscyberpatriot.org/afa-cybercamps/overview
However, do not register through the AFA web site. Rather, use the form below if you wish to be a camp host. More details will be found on the form as to your responsibilities.
If you have other questions, please post them to the CAP cyber Slack channel or email cyber-programs@cap.gov.
Please note that the above weeks are the only weeks in which you can obtain the material free of charge as CAPNHQ is paying one fee for all of CAP for these weeks. If you want to host a camp another week, then you will be required to register with the AFA and pay the entire fee yourself.
You are also responsible for your own cadet/student registration in any way you see fit. You can invite non-CAP members to participate if you wish as this can be a good outreach activity. If you have a registration web site, please let me know and it will be added to this web page.
