The State IT personnel of Florida has started an initial cyber-security training program on Tuesday in collaboration with the Center for Cyber-security of the University of West Florida.
This partnership is meant to enhance and stabilize the state’s cyber-security posture and provide support to the government workforce through the most advanced learning resources.
This program entails topics such as cyber security incident management, operating system hardening, network defense risk management, cloud security and other such topics which are of great concern in today’s world.
The Florida Cyber Range is basically a partnership between the Center for Cyber security and cyber simulations company Metova Cyber Cents, and was meant to be open to industry, academic and government entities. UWF’s Cyber-security for All program sticks to the National Initiative for Cyber Security Education (NICE) framework, which functions as a national blueprint for different areas within this field.
AST Executive Director and State Chief Information Officer Eric Larson are hopeful that the partnership can serve as a model for other states in both cyber security education and in developing lifelong learning pathways. Cyber ranges similar to the Florida Cyber Range are popping up across the country through a variety of public-private partnerships, with many looking to enroll government agencies in their classes.
For its part, UWF has a leading repute in the field of cyber-security education, as it is serving as the NSA/DHS National Center of Academic Excellence Regional Resource Center for the Southeast U.S., which is one of the ten such regional locations throughout the country.
Dr. Eman El-Sheikh, the director of UWF Center for Cyber-security opines that this partnership is something which they launched in collaboration with AST so that they could join hands and help Florida advance as a leader in the world of cyber-security and also to improve its resiliency in workforce development for it on a broader and rather national level.