Today, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced the opening of individual and team registration for the second annual President’s Cup Cybersecurity Competition. The competition is open to any Federal Executive branch employee, including the Department of Defense and uniformed service members, with a knack for cybersecurity.
In an Executive Order on America’s Cybersecurity Workforce issued in May of 2019, President Trump called for an annual interagency effort to identify, challenge, and reward the government’s best personnel supporting cybersecurity and cyber excellence. This competition will test participants in a range of areas from the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) Cybersecurity Workforce Framework, including cyber defense, cyber exploitation, forensics, and more.
“The federal cybersecurity workforce is a strategic asset that protects our citizens, homeland and the American way of life. 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,” said CISA Director Christopher Krebs. “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.”
The individual competition is divided into two tracks, incident response and forensics for one, while another will focus on exploitation analysis and vulnerability assessment analysis. For teams, they will be limited to five members from their own agencies and face challenges from across the NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework. The competition consists of two qualification rounds online, with the final round taking place in-person at CISA facilities in Arlington, Virginia.
Registration for team competition is open to August 14, while individual competitors have until August 28. Federal employees can visit www.cisa.gov/presidentscup to register and learn more.
