Cyber Cup Challenge

Join the 7th Annual Cyber Cup Challenge at the National Cyber Summit - Prizes Available to Winning Teams!

The Seventh Annual Cyber Cup Challenge Hosted by Corelight

This year’s competition is hosted by Corelight and will take place at the 2025 National Cyber Summit on Tuesday Only, September 23 at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Note that the competition is taking place before the Summit kicks off and outside of the exhibit hall. This allows participants to also attend the Summit. This CTF event is aimed to challenge and test participants' technical skills in real-life simulated security-focused competition. 
 

Who Can Participate:

Participation is open to everyone. Summit registration is not required. All participants under the age of 18 will need a parent or guardian present at the conference to consent to participate. Upon completion of the CTF, winners MUST be in attendance to accept the prize. Cost to participate is $75.
 

Deadline:

The last day to register for the Cyber Cup Challenge was September 16, 2025 by 12p.m. CST. 
 

Registration Categories:

There will be two registration categories available to compete in for the Cyber Cup Challenge at the 2024 National Cyber Summit.

Academic Category

Registration for the Cyber Cup Challenge is $75. Students will be required to register with their college (.edu) or high school email addresses.

• Each team can have up to 4 members
• All members of the Academic team must be enrolled in high school or college as of Fall 2025 Semester
• Team members can be from different schools or universities
• If under the age of 18, your parent/gaurdian must be present the day of the competition.

Register as an Academic Individual
 

Register AN Academic Team

Participants in the Academic category will pivot from Suricata alerts to Zeek® evidence, finding indicators of C2 beaconing, lateral movement, and data exfiltration along the way.

Plus, you’ll see how valuable our HTTP, DNS, SSL, and x509 logs (and more) are for common incident response and threat-hunting tasks.
 

Professional Category

Registration for the Cyber Cup Challenge is $75.

• Each team can have up to 4 members

Register as Professional individual

Register a Professional team

Participants in the Professional category will compete head-to-head on dozens of security challenges using Zeek data in Crowdstrike.

We’ve designed the questions in these scenarios to lead you through typical analyst processes, making them interesting to current practitioners while also approachable to folks who want to break into or advance in the security industry.
 

Schedule:

Tuesday, September 23, 2025 | Saturn Ballroom

7:30a.m. - 8:00a.m. | Participant Check-In
8:00a.m. - 12:00p.m. | Morning Session
12:00p.m. - 1:00p.m. | Lunch (provided to participants)
1:00p.m. - 5:00p.m. | Afternoon Session

1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners will be granted to each category and prize money provided. First place winners of both categories will receive a complimentary Full Summit Pass. 

This year’s Cyber Cup Challenge should be a good opportunity to test your skills and have fun!