Game of the Month is a new way to explore past President’s Cup challenges and strengthen your cybersecurity expertise.
Each quarter focuses on a NICE Framework Work Role, with monthly challenges that gradually increase in difficulty.
If you have any questions about the Game of the Month Challenge, please reach out to the President’s Cup Team.
Why Participate?
Develop Key Skills
Engage in continuous learning and gain hands-on experience by applying your skills in intrusion analysis and digital forensics.
Boost Your Career
Work on NICE framework tasks critical to cybersecurity investigations.
Challenge Yourself
Solve a real-world cyber incident scenario.
Game of the Month promotes the best that the President’s Cup has to offer with content from across the archive.
Each new challenge will be announced during the first week of the month on this page and CISA’s social media accounts:
December 2025: Ransom Where?
The President's Cup Cybersecurity Competition team challenges you to test your digital forensics and incident response skills in this month's Game of the Month: "Ransom Where?" (PC5, R3)! In this challenge you will capture and analyze network traffic associated with malicious activities, perform malware analysis, and protect against future incidents.
Ransom Where?
PC5 - Round 3 / Digital Forensics (PD-WRL-002) / Incident Response (PD-WRL-003)
Why Participate?: Gain hands-on experience in digital forensics and software development. Work on NICE framework tasks critical to cybersecurity investigations. Solve a real-world cyber incident scenario.
Last Month's Challenge: Access last month's challenge here: Bravo Charlie Hotel
Solvability Rate
20%
Average Time
140 minutes
Federal employees looking to enhance their cyber skills can also visit the Practice Area to tackle past President's Cup challenges and earn completion certificates for continuing education credits. The President's Cup GitHub is another great way to access artifacts, solution guides, and additional resources from previous competitions.