About

GenCyber is a national cybersecurity camp program jointly funded by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), designed to introduce K-12 students to foundational cybersecurity concepts and careers. Rather than operating as a single centralized program, GenCyber distributes grant funding to universities and institutions across the country, each of which runs its own locally hosted camp under the GenCyber framework. Camps are free to all participants — costs are covered by federal grant funding — and are offered at both the middle and high school level.

Curriculum varies by host institution but consistently covers core cybersecurity principles: safe online behavior, cyber ethics, privacy, password security, networking fundamentals, cryptography, and hands-on exposure to topics like ethical hacking, forensics, and social engineering. Most camps run one to two weeks, offered in residential or commuter formats depending on the host site. Some sites also run parallel teacher camps alongside student programs.

Because GenCyber camps are grant-dependent, availability varies by location and year — not every institution runs a camp every summer. Students should consult the GenCyber camp catalog at cyber.mil to find active sites near them for a given year.

For a student curious about cybersecurity with no prior experience, GenCyber is one of the most geographically distributed free entry points into the field available anywhere in the country.