Crossroads Blog | Institute National Security and Counterterrorism

Cybersecurity, education

Cyber Round Up: Israel’s Cyber-City Development, Future Generations Need to Think Like Hackers, NIST offers up to $1M in Cybersecurity Education Grants

  • Israel’s Desert Blooms with Cyber-City Development (Breitbart): according to this article in the middle of the Negev desert, Israel is building a cyber-city which has placed Israel second only to the US in terms of cyber-expertise.  $500 million in private investments pour into Israeli cybersecurity firms annually and Israel seems to have fully embraced the idea that the next war will be in cyberspace, according to the article.  Furthermore, the Israeli’s view cybersecurity as not merely threat mitigation but also as an economic driver, and the cyber-city in Negev is living-proof of that, according to the article.  The article states that the cyber-city includes elements of the Israeli Defense Forces (“IDF”), as well as private industry, multinational corporations, and also Ben-Gurion University, Israel’s top cybersecurity university.  The full text of the article can be found here.
  • Future Generations of Cybersecurity Experts Need to Think Like A Hacker (TheMerkle.com):  this article theorizes that developing a new mindset where cyber-sleuths think like hacker’s is enabling a new generation of digital detectives.  The article states that New York University’s (“NYU”) Brooklyn campus hosted a Cybersecurity Awareness Week with competitions open to high school and university students and where prizes ranged from $450,000 (scholarships) for high schoolers to $11,000 in cash for university students.  Sponsors of the event included the Department of Homeland Security, Facebook, and IBM, according to the article.  The full text of the article can be found here.
  • NIST ‘RAMPS’ Up Cybersecurity Education and Workforce Development with New Grants (NIST): In a recent press release, the National Institute of Standards and Technology indicates that they are offering up to $1 million in grants to establish up to eight Regional Allicance Multistakeholder Partnerships to Stimulate (RAMPS) cybersecurity education and workforce development. The release cites a Global Information Security Workforce Study that estimates an international shortfall of 1.5 million people over the next five years due to a lack of trained professionals and the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (“NICE”) is designed to address that need.  According to the release, RAMPS will help encourage greater employer engagement in local communities which will help influence education and training providers to develop job-driven training that provides cybersecurity skills.  The release states that NIST plans to fund five to eight awards of up to $200,000, and the deadline to apply is July 12, 2016.  The press release can be found here.

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