CybersecurityNSA, DHS partner with academia to train next generation cyber specialists

Universities across the United States have partnered with the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to prepare the next generation of cybersecurity professionals in anticipation of growing and more serious cyberattacks on the United States. About 181 schools are designing new academic programs to attract more students to the growing field of cybersecurity, and with NSA and DHS as partners, the universities are preparing students for important roles in securing the nation’s digital infrastructure.

“There is a widespread understanding that this is an unmet need and universities are a good vehicle to bridge that gap,” said Steven Weber of Drexel University’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

The Sacramento Bee reports that partnering universities are designated as a National Center of Academic Excellence (NCAE) in Information Assurance or Cyber Defense. NSA and DHS have set guidelines for designating a university as part of the NCAE. Certification of the program ensures students leaving school with a background in cybersecurity have the skills needed to secure government and private sector networks.

The guidelines are divided into ten sections to evaluate a university’s cybersecurity program in areas including academic content, number of active faculty who teach cybersecurity, and student involvement in cyber-research. To meet the NSA’s academic content requirements, universities must offer C programming language, networking, discrete math, and cyber defense in addition to other topics.

Private firms have also partnered with cybersecurity and computer science programs across the country in an effort to prepare students for various roles in the cybersecurity sector. Northrop Grumman has dedicated $1.1 million to the University of Maryland to create a new cybersecurity program emphasizing multidisciplinary solutions called Advanced Cybersecurity Experience for Students (ACES). The program takes a different approach from more technical cybersecurity programs.

“Cybersecurity is really a systems problem. Some say it is a technical problem, but you need to look at the problems globally,” said Michel Cukier, the director of ACES. The ACES program recently brought together fifty-seven freshmen from the computer science, engineering, and business majors to analyze problems and discuss solutions in cybersecurity. “Things will change, it’s a field where you need to learn all the time,” Cukier said. “We want to teach students that they need to keep their eyes open to get the most global picture to solve the problem.”

The Bee notes that cybersecurity professionals who attended the Atlantic Council’s first Cyber Risk Wednesday recently held in Washington, D.C. warned that a substantial cyberattack may occur in the United States, and that government and private sector entities are underprepared to respond to such an attack.

Larry Castro, managing director of The Chertoff Group also warned that the government lacks the ability  efficiently to prepare for or recover from a major cyber attack. “Our country quite frankly does not have a governance structure that allows us to begin to either prepare for, or recover from, in some other than very chaotic way from a massive cyber outage,” Castro said.

While it is unlikely for a cyberattack to leave the country without power for an extended period of time, cybersecurity experts believe an attack could compromise the networks of entire industries. Peter Sclafani of Capital News Service compares the scenario to the sub-prime mortgage crisis. “Similar to how the risk management decisions of companies like Lehman Brothers affected companies that did not have a key role in the sub-prime mortgage crisis, the interconnectedness of information technology can leave entire industries vulnerable to the fallout of a successful cyberattack on just one company.”