Bring cybersecurity to your classroom or club
Most schools cannot teach cybersecurity because the lab costs money the department does not have. We built CyberAcad so that stops being the reason. The curriculum, the Linux environments, the network simulator, and the hands-on challenges are free to any teacher, club leader, or CyberPatriot coach who asks, and the browser labs run on the Chromebooks you already have.
What you get
- A portal you run yourself
- Your own page at cyberacad.org/org/your-school. Set up a group for each class period, club night or chapter, pick the courses it is working through, and generate join codes on the spot. You do not have to email us to make a code, and you do not have to wait on us to change one.
- A class code per group, with limits if you want them
- One code enrolls a whole roster into every course that group is taking. Cap it at the size of your class and it stops working once everyone is in, so a code left on a whiteboard does not become an open door. Turn a code off and issue a fresh one whenever you like.
- Progress you can actually see
- Per student: how far through each course they are, how many challenges they have solved, and when they were last here. Sort by last active to find who has not started. Export the roster as a CSV when it needs to reach your gradebook.
- Labs that run on a Chromebook
- The Linux terminals, the network simulator, and the challenges run in the browser against infrastructure we host. No VMs to image, no software to get past IT, no lab budget. The one exception is CyberPatriot prep, which uses the practice image in VirtualBox the same way the competition does, so it needs a laptop or desktop that can install software.
- Certificates students can show
- Courses that offer one end with a certificate that has a public verification link, for a résumé, a scholarship application, or a club portfolio. They record what a student finished on our platform. They are not an accredited qualification, and we say so on the certificate itself.
Four ways it can fit
You do not have to adopt a whole program. Take the part that fits the time you have.
A weekly cyber club
A unit fits comfortably into one club session. The lessons are self-paced and gated, so a student who misses a week picks up where they stopped instead of falling behind the room. Meeting-sized chunks, no prep required from you.
CyberPatriot and CTF prep
Our CyberPatriot Linux course walks through hardening a deliberately insecure Ubuntu image against a live scoring engine, one class of problem per unit. Built by competitors who placed at Platinum level, for teams starting from zero. Windows is not covered yet.
A unit inside an existing course
Intro to Linux drops into a broader CS or IT class as a hands-on module. Take the units you need; there is no requirement to run a whole course.
Independent study and enrichment
For the one student who has already outrun your syllabus. Give them a code, point them at a course, and let them go.
The questions IT and administrators ask
Get your portal
Tell us roughly how many students and which course interests you. We set up your portal and send you the link. From then on you create your own groups and join codes, and change them whenever you need to. A real person reads every one of these. There is nothing to sign and nothing to pay.
Not a teacher, but work in security?
Right now every lesson is written and checked by us, a few students. We’d love someone who does this for a living to look over the lessons for accuracy or help write challenges. Get in touch and tell us what you’d want to work on.