10 cadet teams, including 2012 champs, headed to CyberPatriot V semifinals

NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS – Ten Civil Air Patrol cadet teams, including the 2012 overall champions and the forensic competition winners, have emerged from the first and second rounds of the Air Force Association’s CyberPatriot competition and will compete Jan. 11-12 as semifinalists in the All Services Division.

The teams represent squadrons from eight wings and six regions.

CAP’s six assigned slots in the semifinal round of the national high school cyber security competition went to:

• Arkansas Wing – 115th Composite Squadron.
• California Wing – Beach Cities Cadet Squadron.
• Colorado Wing – Air Academy and Colorado Springs composite squadrons.
• Ohio Wing – Youngstown ARS Composite Squadron.
• South Dakota Wing – Big Sioux Composite Squadron.

In addition, CAP teams earned four of the seven nationwide wild card slots:

• Alabama Wing – Pell City Composite Squadron.
• Colorado Wing – Thompson Valley Composite Squadron.
• Georgia Wing – Gwinnett Composite Squadron.
• Wisconsin Wing – Timmerman Composite Squadron.

The Colorado Springs Composite team won last year’s overall competition, while the Big Sioux Composite cadets finished first in the inaugural cyber forensics competition.

CAP cadets have accounted for the last two overall champions of the All Services Division. The 2011 crown went to a team from the Florida Wing.

The Air Force Association launched CyberPatriot in 2008 to provide high school students with hands-on learning about cyber security by challenging them to defend against realistic computer threat scenarios while also exciting, educating and motivating them to be help lead the next generation of cyber defenders.

The All Services Division also includes teams from the Air Force, Army, Marine Corps and Navy Junior ROTCs, as well as – starting this year – the Naval Sea Cadets. A second field of competition, the Open Division, consists of teams from public and private high schools and home schools.

The national finals are set for March 14-15 in National Harbor, Md.

This year, CAP again accounted for the largest number of teams in the competition – 261, or nearly one-third, of the 806 All Services Division entrants. The CAP teams hailed from 48 of the organization’s 52 wings.

Overall, a record 1,225 teams competed in both divisions.