What are the requirements of participation?
The National Cyber Analyst Challenge is open to teams of students enrolled in bachelors (4 year) or masters programs in US universities. To enter, the university must provide a full-time faculty advisor and field a team from a relevant academic cyber program. Only one team per university may participate in the challenge. The requirements include:
- Bachelor or Master’s students (Ph.D students are excluded)
- Full-time or part-time
- Full-time faculty advisor (exception available for part-time faculty nominated by department chair)
- Students must be enrolled in universities in the United States
- The US university must have a relevant academic cyber program (see below)
- Students may not compete in the finals more than once
What is a relevant academic cyber program?
A relevant academic cyber program is a major or minor at the undergraduate level with sufficient enrollment to sustain the program. Similarly, a master’s program with a focus on cyber with sufficient enrollment to sustain the program is also a good fit. If your university only has a cyber club and no academic programs then you are not eligible. If you have questions about your university’s eligibility, please contact the organizers at ibit@temple.edu. The decision of the organizers on eligibility is final.
Note: Consistent with current industry usage, the term ‘cyber’ refers to cyber-security as well as related areas of forensics, information assurance, cyber analytics, and information technology audit.
Can individuals participate in the challenge?
No. You can only participate if you are a student and your university decides to participate and fields a student team and a faculty advisor. Please contact the faculty in your university if you would like to participate and ask them to contact us at ibit@temple.edu.
My university has agreed to participate and we have a faculty advisor, what do I do next?
The first step is to register on this site. If you have successfully registered on the site then you will receive information on how to participate in Phase I.
Can more than one team participate from a university?
No. We can only accommodate one team from each participating university.
What is the required team size?
Each team should have 4 – 5 students and one faculty advisor.
What skills are needed to participate?
You will require technical, analytical, and presentation skills to succeed. See above for eligibility requirements. NCAC will provide workshops on specific industry standard cyber concepts.
What is the approximate time commitment?
Students
- Phase I: About 16 – 22 hours total per team
- Phase II: About 8 – 12 hours per individual
- Phase III: About 15-20 hours of preparation and attendance at challenge
Faculty
- About 12 – 15 hours plus attendance at challenge
The above are estimates. Please review the challenge timeline for more.
How is the National Cyber Analyst Challenge different from other cyber-security competitions?
NCAC is small, highly interactive, provides mentors, scholarships, and institutional support. NCAC focuses more on threat identification and remediation and less on cyber defense and building secure technology.