Newest Cyber Warriors Vie For Top NSA Trophy

WASHINGTON: The 2021 competition for the prestigious National Security Agency Cyber Exercise (NCX) trophy begins today. The three-day event is part of an integrated cybersecurity program for students at U.S. service academies, senior military colleges, and some NSA interns.

This year’s event features more than 200 students from 13 different organizations and will be held virtually, at a closed site in Columbia, Maryland.

“NCX is NSA’s premier cyber exercise that builds the next generation of cyber warriors and defenders, ensuring our national defense,” Diane Janosek, commandant for NSA’s National Cryptologic School, told me. “Through NCX, NSA helps to educate, train, and test the cyber skills of U.S. service academy cadets and midshipmen, as well as teams from the senior military colleges and select NSA employees. We look forward to another great competition.”

NCX provides both predictive and unexpected scenarios that require agility against the background of an ever-evolving cyber landscape, Janosek said. It’s a series of modules designed to test participants’ technical cybersecurity skills, as well as demonstrate teamwork, planning, communication, and decision-making.

On Thursday and Friday, participants will compete in modules focused on forensics, policy, cryptography, and reverse engineering, Janosek said. Saturday is the final cyber combat exercise, “a scenario-based continuous live-fire computer network attack-and-defend team against team exercise, which allows participants to test their cyber skills against each other.”

The winner will be the service academy or senior military college that scores the most points across the three-day cyber competition.

NSA collaborated with Parsons Corporation on creating this year’s modules, Janosek said. While NSA developed the content criteria, Parsons created the content and will facilitate the modules and score each team.

There are some changes to this year’s event. First, COVID-19 means the competition will be entirely virtual for participants’ health and safety, Janosek said. Another change: Senior military colleges will be eligible for the first time to win the NCX trophy at this year’s competition.

This year’s competitors include students from the U.S. Military Academy, U.S. Naval Academy, U.S. Coast Guard Academy, U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, Norwich University, Texas A&M University, The Citadel, Virginia Military Institute, Virginia Tech, and University of North Georgia. Participants will also include civilian interns from NSA’s developmental programs.

Last year’s NCX was cancelled due to COVID-19. The Air Force Academy won the 2019 event, while the Naval Academy placed first in 2018.