It’s cyber throwdown week between the cyber leaders from five U.S. and Canadian military service academies and experts from the National Security Agency (NSA) in the 12^th annual Cyber Defense Exercise (CDX). The event takes place all week and teaches the students how to defend vital information systems.

Lockheed Martin worked with NSA to establish a private network for the exercise, which links all the academies with CDX headquarters at the Lockheed Martin facility in Hanover. West Point is the defending champ.

Each team must design and configure a computer network and protect it against attacks from the NSA. “The students will tackle all of the same cyber challenges we face on a daily basis: detecting intruders, eradicating malware, and adapting to increasingly sophisticated and dynamic adversaries,” according to Darrell Durst, VP of Cyber Solutions for Lockheed Martin.