AFA Congratulates Advancing Teams in CyberPatriot Competition

ARLINGTON, Va., Oct. 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The CyberPatriot competition officially began last Saturday, October 23, 2010, with more than 400 All-Service teams setting out to competitively ward off a series of cyber attacks and defend a virtualized network of computers.

Many teams were able to successfully compete and displayed exceptional performance.  Those teams will receive a "bye" for the second round of competition and will be advanced directly to the third round.  Due to exceptionally high server demand, technical challenges impaired some teams' ability to compete. As a result, every team has advanced to the second round of the competition.

"This was a wonderful round of competition for many competitors, and we congratulate them.  We know some teams experienced frustrations due to technical problems, but our industry partners are working to resolve the problems. We are absolutely committed to making the next round of competition a better experience," said Bernie Skoch, CyberPatriot Commissioner. "To give everyone the opportunity to compete, we are advancing all teams to the second round. We believe this program is a great learning instrument and want everyone to have an opportunity to participate."

CyberPatriot is the premier high school cybersecurity competition in the nation produced by the Air Force Association (AFA), a nonprofit organization headquartered near Washington, D.C. This unique competition was designed to give students a hands-on learning experience in cybersecurity and inspire students to consider science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields in their studies.

In this two-track competition, teams have registered from public, private, parochial and home schools in the Open Division and JROTC units of all Services and Civil Air Patrol squadrons filled the All-Service Division. In all, more than 660 teams have registered to participate this year.

Throughout CyberPatriot, teams of five, with an approved coach, race against both the clock and their opponents as they must find and correct vulnerabilities in a virtual network. Teams are scored according to how quickly and effectively they established and maintained secure networks.

The top teams will continue to compete in a series of online rounds to determine the finalists for scholarship money and an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C. and the Championship Round at the Gaylord National Convention Center in April 2011.

The next round for the All-Service teams will be on November 6, while the Open Division begins competing on November 13.

CyberPatriot is presented by Northrop Grumman, with founding partners SAIC and the CIAS at the University of Texas-San Antonio. More can be learned about CyberPatriot at http://www.uscyberpatriot.org.

The AFA is a 501(C)(3), nonprofit organization promoting public understanding of aerospace power and the pivotal role it plays in the security of the nation. AFA has over 200 chapters nationally and internationally representing 120,000 members.

SOURCE Air Force Association