Just glance at your spam inbox, or at the odd texts that occasionally pop up on your phone. Scammers, spearphishers, and hackers are getting better everyday at finding the chinks in the armor. And for the world, an enormous chink in cybersecurity’s armor is that there is a glaring shortage of skilled professionals to battle those attacks, and lead private individuals, businesses and even nations in implementing more secure methods.
To battle this problem at home, Boise State’s Institute for Pervasive Cybersecurity is the recipient of a grant totalling more than $806,000 from the Idaho Workforce Development Council. The goal of this Training Fund Industry Sector Grant is to build competency-based learning in cybersecurity with Boise State students.
Over the three year grant period, 84 students will be trained in everything from general cybersecurity concepts, networking concepts and practical networking tools, common attack types and attributes, cybersecurity defense principles, platform specific programs and tools, and critical communications skills.
“You can have the newest, most high-tech infrastructure in the world, but without educated professionals with mastery over those tools and the training to outsmart the cyber criminal, you have nothing,” Ed Vasko explains. “That’s why strategic economic investments in Idaho’s future workforce are going to make our region a national leader in cybersecurity.”
“The Workforce Development Council has made significant investments in efforts to deliver cybersecurity training across a wide range of professions in Idaho,” said Wendi Secrist, the Executive Director fo the Idaho Workforce Council. “We are especially interested in the Institute for Pervasive Cybersecurity Cyberdome platform to expand work-based learning opportunities. Idaho’s employers are consistently sharing the message that they need individuals who have both theory and practical experience – and the Cyberdome delivers.”