Northeast State Community College receives $1.6 million grant for cybersecurity education

The cybersecurity program at Northeast State Community College has won a $1.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor. 

The Strengthening College Training grant was created to promote underrepresented student populations in the field of cybersecurity education and computer information technology programs.

Twelve other colleges and universities will also receive grant funding from the department’s Employment and Training Administration. 

The Times News quoted Dr. Donna Ferrell, the dean of Northeast State Community College’s Technologies Division, on the grant, who said, “The grant will provide an excellent computer science opportunity for first-generation college students and students of color. The grant also allows the college to strengthen its current computer science programs and offer the region and state a unique facility for combating cybercrime.”

The school will use the money to develop models for coaching and peer mentoring, which will help improve student success and retention, and increase outreach to other potential students, such as through recruitment marketing, particularly among populations of color. 

There are also plans to create a cyber range which will provide realistic simulations of cyber attacks on computer systems which will teach students how to identify and eliminate potential threats.

The cyber range simulates such security threats as attacks on software, firewalls, switches, routers, servers, networks, and more. Such attacks will take the form of malware, phishing, ransomware, and more. These simulated attacks will be done in a way that causes no damage to any actual systems. 

Numbers supplied by the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center reveal that more than two billion dollars were reported in losses last year just due to compromised business emails. There were also more than one and a half billion dollars worth of cryptocurrency scams that same year.

Dr. Farrell stated that industry partners and students would learn together about how to defend against these attacks that take advantage of insecurities in a system, as well as plug the weak points in a system’s security protocols. She noted that the cyber range would allow for students to practice on scenarios in which good and bad hackers (white hat and black hat hackers) would face off against each other in a competition.

Next for the Northeast State Community College is to hire a director for these programs, other staff who will be funded by the grant, as well as an external evaluator. An assessment of space requirements is also necessary. 

Next year, Northeast State Community College will have finished equipment lists for hardware and software that needs to be purchased for the cyber range. 

The project will be located at the school’s main campus in Blountville, Tennessee.

For students interested in attending Northeast State Community College or those who just want to learn more about the school, more information can be found on its website.