USAFA competes in NSA cyber defense exercise Published April 18, 2007 By 020407 U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. - -- The Air Force Academy will compete in the 7th Annual National Security Agency Cyber Defense exercise April 16-20. The cadets will participate in the exercise here in concert with the NSA's Maryland headquarters and the nation's other military service academies. The Cyber Defense Exercise serves as a capstone project for the Academy's Network Security course, which teaches cadets how to design, build, secure and defend a computer network. NSA and military specialists will grade each team's ability to effectively maintain network services while detecting, responding to and recovering from network security intrusions or compromises. Lessons learned during this exercise will help these cadet computer science majors after graduation, when they join a service whose mission recently expanded to include mastery of not only air and space, but also cyberspace. The Air Force Academy team finished in first place during the 2003 and 2006 cyber defense exercise events. Other winners of the previous exercises were the U.S. Naval Academy in 2005, the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in 2004, and the U.S. Military Academy in 2001 and 2002. -30- Note: News media interested in covering this event should call the Academy public affairs office at (719) 333-7731.