NICE FRAMEWORK SUCCESS STORY 

President's Cup Cybersecurity Competition

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

Talent Management

The voluntary Workforce Framework for Cybersecurity (NICE Framework) was developed through 

a collaborative process by industry, academia, and government stakeholders. It establishes a 

taxonomy and common lexicon that describes cybersecurity work and is intended for use in both 

the public and private sectors. NIST does not validate or endorse any individual organization or its 

approach to using the NICE Framework. 

ORGANIZATIONAL PROFILE 

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

(CISA) is the Nation’s risk advisor, working with 

partners to defend against today’s threats and 

collaborating to build more secure and resilient 

infrastructure for the future. CISA’s programs and 

services are driven by a comprehensive 

understanding of the risk environment and the 

corresponding needs identified by public and private 

stakeholders.

As part of Executive Order 13870: America’s 

Cybersecurity Workforce, CISA founded the

President's Cup Cybersecurity Competition in 2019 

as a national cybersecurity event aiming to identify, 

challenge, and reward the best cybersecurity talent in 

the Federal workforce. The competition was made 

available to any Federal executive department or 

agency employee, including uniformed service 

members.

The competition consists of two qualifying and one 

final round, each increasingly more difficult. The 

challenges generally use a capture the flag format, 

but the final teams round is an immersive simulated 

environment. Real-world scenarios are used for the 

challenges where participants will apply technical 

skills to solve a problem or complete a task.

DRIVERS 

E.O. 13870 called for the President’s Cup 

Cybersecurity Competition to be held on an annual 

basis. Per the executive order, “The goal of the 

competition shall be to identify, challenge, and 

reward the United States Government’s best 

cybersecurity practitioners and teams across 

offensive and defensive cybersecurity disciplines.” 

The Executive Order also 

required the President’s Cup 

competition activities be 

mapped to the NICE 

Framework and other 

categories (software reverse 

engineering and exploitation, 

network operations, forensics, 

big data analysis, cyber 

analysis, cyber defense, cyber 

exploitation, secure 

programming, obfuscated coding, cyber-physical 

systems).

Figure 1: Screenshot of President's Cup gameboard

PROCESS

For each President’s Cup Cybersecurity 

Competition, CISA requires that each challenge 

be mapped to the NICE Framework. This ensures 

that the competition is well-rounded and covers a 

wide variety of knowledge and skills. 

For the inaugural competition in 2019, challenges 

focused on the categories listed in the Executive 

Order and categories from the NICE Framework. 

Of the seven NICE Framework Categories, 

Oversee and Govern was not included in the 

competition, while Analyze and Investigate were 

combined into one category to make five distinct 

categories. All competitors were tested across the 

NICE Framework in keeping with the Executive 

Order. 
–

NICE FRAMEWORK SUCCESS STORY 

President's Cup Cybersecurity Competition, CISA

In 2020, the individual competition was divided into 

two specialized tracks. One for Incident Response 

and Forensics and the other for Exploitation and 

Vulnerability Assessment. This allowed participants to 

compete in areas that most closely align to their 

skillset, although individuals could choose to 

participate in one or both tracks based on their 

interest. 

Challenges in the 2020 competition were mapped to 

Work Roles and Tasks within the NICE Framework, 

rather than Categories. The Work Roles and Tasks for 

each individual and team competition were selected 

based on the President’s Cup staff’s experiences and 

insights from developing the challenges.

In the competition’s gameboard, the NICE 

Framework Work Roles and Tasks were identified for 

each challenge to make it easier for participants to 

decide which challenges to attempt. Direct links to 

relevant NICE Framework Work Roles and Tasks were 

also included in the challenge instructions. 

TIE-IN WITH THE NICE FRAMEWORK

Mapping the competition challenges to the NICE 

Framework helps the President’s Cup meet its goal to 

challenge participants across a variety of cybersecurity 

disciplines.

“The President's Cup Cybersecurity Competition 

identifies the top cybersecurity talent in the Federal 

workforce and is tied to the NICE Framework. By 

using the Framework, the competition ensures that 

the finalists demonstrate the wide breadth of 

knowledge and skills required to address the 

evolving cyber threats of today and tomorrow.”

-Eric Goldstein, Executive Assistant Director

for Cybersecurity, CISA

In the future, CISA plans to collaborate with 

agencies and departments to identify what Work 

Roles are in-demand or heavily staffed across the 

Federal government to identify areas in which the 

challenges will best align.

BENEFITS & IMPACT

Aligning the competition to the NICE Framework 

has worked well to develop challenges that not 

only test a variety of skills but also are grounded 

in real-world scenarios. 

Shifting the focus from the NICE Framework 

Categories to the Work Roles and Tasks added 

value to the competition. It kept the competition 

from being too heavily focused on certain 

cybersecurity skillsets. 

CISA has published the 2019 President’s Cup 

challenges and plans to do the same with the 

2020 challenges. The NICE Framework 

information is detailed for each challenge to assist 

individuals to seek specific challenges for 

education and training. 

CISA will continue to use the NICE Framework 

Work Roles when designing future President’s 

Cup Cybersecurity Competition Challenges. 

CONTACT INFORMATION & RESOURCES

Contacts:

 Michael Harpin, Federal Lead, President’s Cup

 Michael.harpin@cisa.dhs.gov

 Education@cisa.dhs.gov

Websites:

 www.cisa.gov/presidentscup

 presidentscup.cisa.gov/

 github.com/cisagov/prescup19-challenges

April 2021 

NICE Framework Website: nist.gov/nice/framework 

Contact Us: niceframework@nist.gov