One of the things that makes community colleges unique is their close ties to the communities they serve. At CSN, that means keeping up with the needs of the local business community, among other things.
Which is why we’re so excited about our cybersecurity program.
Nevada has a need for cybersecurity professionals, and the College of Southern Nevada is poised to become the state’s top training center for them.
“We are building the premier cybersecurity program in the state of Nevada,” said Margaret Taylor, chair of the community college’s department of computing and information technology
In fact, there’s a critical need nationwide for people trained to keep hackers out of secure computer networks. Nearly two-thirds of small business owners in the United States said they had been victims of a cybercrime, according to a recent survey by Nationwide. But 79 percent of those same business owners acknowledged that they don’t have a response plan in place for when such an attack occurs.
Cybercrimes such as viruses, phishing, ransomware and plain old hacking can cost businesses tens of thousands of dollars.
The Governor’s Office of Science, Innovation and Technology, known as OSIT, reports that the projected growth rate through 2022 of jobs requiring cyber security skills is nearly 30 percent. Starting wages are between $45,000 and $55,000 per year, with an average wage of $84,620.
Locally, much of the training of the next generation of cybersecurity experts will be done at CSN, thanks in part to a STEM Workforce Challenge Grant, awarded to CSN through OSIT.
The grant enables CSN to expand its cybersecurity degree offerings from two currently to four by the start of the 2018-19 academic year.
CSN currently offers the only cybersecurity associate degree in the Nevada System of Higher Education. The two degrees available now are Network Security and Digital Forensics. There is also a certificate of achievement available in Digital Forensics. Next year, officials expect to add a third associate degree option, with a fourth scheduled for the following year.
The grant, which totaled $149,882, allowed CSN to create a state-of-the-art lab to provide students with the hands-on training employers demand.
Arthur Salmon
Arthur Salmon, the cybersecurity program director, said students are instructed about the latest computer hacking techniques. Much of that training is done in the new lab, on CSN’s North Las Vegas Campus.
Among the lab’s more unusual features are walls lined with copper mesh to keep the students’ practice hacking from escaping into the real world. They’re even building what’s called a Faraday cage inside the classroom. This is a nearly completely enclosed metal cage designed to secure wireless signals.
“We had to make sure that we had a safe area for us to do wireless penetration labs so that we did not affect the school’s wireless network,” Salmon explained.