As the U.S. faces constant attacks from hackers, Air Force Academy cadets are preparing to face those challenges as part of the Cyber Competition Team.

"This is the place to come if you want to be a cyber operator," explained junior Jaden Liu, the captain of the cadet-led club. "... We have talent here that can not only compete against other service academies, but also against industry and government professionals."

When at least some of the club members transition to active-duty positions, they will face a tough and rapidly evolving environment. For example, the state-sponsored Chinese hackers are pre-positioning themselves on IT networks, according to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The cyber protections around critical infrastructure that allows troop movement is also insufficient, said the director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in March.

While the challenges club members face are a not a perfect replica of the real world they are helping them practice the same skills and thought processes they will use in the future, said Maj. Michael Crowl, an instructor in charge of the club.

The team recently demonstrated their skills by winning the National Security Agency Cyber Exercise, also known as NCX. West Point took second in the contest that also drew the Naval Academy and the Coast Guard Academy. Teams also came from Cyber Command and public universities, such as Virginia Tech.

The Air Force Academy team practiced around 10 hours a week and competed in 33 other contests leading up to NCX during March in Maryland.

As part of the three-day contest, teams practiced both their offensive and defensive cyber skills battling for control of a machine over six hours.

"Your goal is to get access as quick as possible and not let other teams get on, so you can secure that machine," Liu said. The cyber battles can happen over real-world systems, such as mail servers.

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They also had to test their abilities in data analysis, reverse engineering, forensics and policy, Liu said.

Testing cyber policy knowledge alongside technical skills is important because of the impact those decisions can have, explained Kenneth Wang, a sophomore recently selected for an internship with the NSA.

"With any environment —any professional environment, whether corporate or military — you're going to have to obey policies because of how innately political our actions can be, or how much effect that it can have on a company or the nation," Wang said.

A stand out on the team, freshman Neil Kumar, fell in love with computers early, when he started playing mine sweeper as a 3-year-old. As a sophomore in high school, he founded a similar cyber competition team that competed for prizes and money. This year, he brought in a lot of wins by himself, Liu said.

"He was competing against captains," he said.

Others, such as Emory Carroll discovered a love for the cyber world in her required computer science class as a freshman, she said, where she learned python, a coding language similar to English.

"Coding is how my brain works," she said. "... You can shape it however you want, and you can just build your own world," Carroll said.