Bring real cybersecurity education into your classroom: free, flexible, and built for all skill levels.
Cybersecurity education, built for the classroom
CyLab Security Academy gives educators a free platform to introduce
students to cybersecurity through hands-on challenges, structured
learning paths, and classroom management tools — all created by security
experts at Carnegie Mellon University.
Whether you’re a CS teacher integrating security into an existing
course or running an after-school club, we have resources to support
you.
Get started
Set up your classroom
Three steps to get your students up and running on the platform.
01
Sign up
Create a free account on CyLab Security Academy and choose
Teacher / Educator as your player type. You’ll receive an email
with a verification link. Verify your account to activate it.
02
Create a classroom and add students
Create a classroom from the Classroom menu in the top navigation
and share its Classroom Invite Code with students and co-teachers.
If your students don’t have accounts or email addresses yet, Batch
Register creates logins for them and gives you a spreadsheet to hand
out. Students can claim their accounts later with their own username
and email.
03
Assign and track
Post Assignments to give students structured goals. Each one
bundles challenges, learning paths, or single chapters and modules, in
the order you choose, with a due date and an optional date it becomes
visible. Then follow each student’s progress from the classroom page.
See how your class is doing
The classroom page shows your class’s progress in the Challenge Library
or in any event you pick from the Event menu.
Academy platform · Members tab, educator view
Class Averages shows the spread of points across the class.
Class Progress shows how many students have registered and solved
something, how far the class has gotten in each category and
difficulty, and which challenges nobody in the class has solved yet.
Class Activity shows which days students were active. Download the
Classroom Report for a CSV of scores and category progress for your
gradebook, and open Event Scoreboards to see a scoreboard of just
your class.
Each student
Expand any student to see when they were last active, their progress by
difficulty, their learning paths, recent submissions, and an activity
calendar. From the same list you can approve join requests, promote a
co-teacher to classroom leader, and remove members.
Academy platform · One student, educator view
Assignments
Find challenges by name, category, or difficulty, add learning paths,
and use Review order to set the order students see them in.
Academy platform · Creating an assignment
View Results shows who finished on time, late, or not yet, with
each student’s progress on every challenge, learning path, chapter, and
module, and a calendar of class activity between the start and due
date. Export CSV downloads the results.
Academy platform · Assignment results
Your dashboard also lists active assignments and pending join requests
for a class you lead.
Scrimmages
Turn on Run as a scrimmage to make an assignment a short contest
for your class, with a live scoreboard.
Academy platform · A live scrimmage
Scoring: a challenge is worth its difficulty: easy 1, medium 2,
hard 3. A learning path, chapter, or module scores once every part of
it is done.
Everyone starts even: only work between the start and the due
date counts. A challenge a student solved earlier scores once they
submit its flag again during the scrimmage.
Locked once it starts: after the start, the challenges and the
start date can’t change. You can still rename it, reorder it, or move
the due date later.
One at a time: a classroom can have one scrimmage scheduled or
running.
Want teams? Create a classroom for the scrimmage, batch-register one
account per team, and have each team share its account.
For your classroom
Learning guides
These guides cover the core cybersecurity topics found in our
challenges. Use them to prepare students before competitions, or as
standalone reading material for your course.
Curiosity, exploration, and deeply understanding how something works.
Most people who identify as hackers are working hard to protect people
and make technology safer. Computer security experts are in very high
demand today and are often paid six-figure salaries.
What is a CTF?
A computer security competition where contestants solve challenges
testing creativity, technical skills, and problem-solving. Each solved
challenge yields a flag string submitted to a scoring service. CTFs
are a great way to learn security skills in a safe, legal environment.
What is CyLab Security Academy?
A year-round cybersecurity learning platform created by trusted experts
at Carnegie Mellon University. It teaches enough security to pique
curiosity, motivates learners to explore on their own, and helps them
better defend the systems they rely on.
Educator FAQ
What network domains do my students need access to?
Network administrators may need to allowlist these domains and port
ranges:
cylabacademy.org (HTTPS)
learn.cylabacademy.org (HTTPS)
webshell.cylabacademy.org (HTTPS)
challenge-files.cylabacademy.net (HTTPS)
xebec.cylabacademy.net (All ports UDP/TCP)*
chatelaine.cylabacademy.net (All ports UDP/TCP)*
* For networks that can’t allow non-standard ports, students can use
the webshell to access non-web challenges. For web challenges, they can
turn on HTTP proxy under Challenge Links in their account
settings to open challenge links over port 80.
What background do my students need?
Minimally, how to think critically. Some programming familiarity helps,
but many past participants have played with no prior programming
experience. Exposure to Python, HTML, JavaScript, and C is ideal — but
not required.
How does CyLab Security Academy fit into a curriculum?
Flexible enough to be a standalone enrichment activity, an after-school
club, or integrated into a CS or cybersecurity course. The Challenge
Library provides always-available practice; Learning Guides and
Learning Paths give structured paths for topic-by-topic learning.
Classrooms let you track and assess progress throughout.
Is it free?
Yes — completely free for students and educators. No licensing fees,
subscriptions, or paywalls.
How much time do students need?
A wide range of difficulties means students can spend as much or as
little time as you have. Outside of competition windows, Challenge
Library is always open for self-paced practice. Competitions run for
a fixed window (typically 10 days) but students can log in any time
during.
Can a CMU student ambassador visit my class?
Yes. CMU student ambassadors can help onboard students and review
basic security concepts. Email
support@cylabacademy.org for more
information.
My students don't have email addresses. Can they still join?
Yes. Use Batch Register on your classroom page to create accounts
for them. You’ll download a spreadsheet of usernames and passwords to
hand out, and students can claim their accounts later with their own
username and email.
How do I add additional teachers or leaders to my classroom?
Other leaders join with the same Classroom Invite Code used by
students. Once they join, they appear under Class Members with a
Promote button to make them a classroom leader.
What is the role of the teacher in competitions?
During competitions we hope teacher sponsors will act primarily as
facilitators rather than mentors — but feel free to support students
in whatever way suits your classroom.
As a teacher, can I play too?
Absolutely. We recommend you do not directly join a student team
during a competition, since this can render the team ineligible for
prizes (most student scoreboards require all team members to be
students). Use the classroom feature to follow your students’ progress
instead.
I'm still a bit confused…
No problem — email
educator@cylabacademy.org and we’ll
clarify. You’re also welcome in the Discord server’s
#teachers-and-educators channel to swap ideas and stories with
other educators.