Cyber Patriot is the Air Force Association created program for K-12 students to compete in to encourage a career in cyber security, technology, and other STEM-related paths. The overall memo of the program is to simulate a cyber attack against a company’s defense network. The job of the students, and their respected teams, is to find the weaknesses in the system through a set of online hack simulations. The competition is in progress right now as students are going through practice rounds until Oct. 25, where practice round one begins.

Prep’s instructor and team leader Mr. Bhatti summarized the event, “To simulate a data breach on your company’s network,” Mr. Bhatti has been assisting the team of three for a month now. He said the goal of this year’s Cyber Patriot XII was, “To train people in cyber security and promote the career.” The virtual attacks are meant to teach the part-time IT employees real world situations where they would stop the breach with their network services. The simulation occurs on Microsoft Windows, Linux, and MAC operating systems.

Round two of the competition begins on Nov. 15. In that round, the only differences are difficulties in the simulations. The state finals begin on Dec. 6, and the semifinals are on Jan. 24, 2020. Finally, the last competition meets on March 19 in Maryland where winning students earn scholarships and national recognition. Every round is done in the classroom with each member working together as a team. The last round is a paid trip to Bethesda, Maryland for the big stage event which Mr. Bhatti’s cyber security class will work hard for.