Maryland center helps grow cybersecurity workforce

The National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence is a partnership of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the state of Maryland, and the county of Montgomery, Md., where the center is located in Rockville.

Its goal is to integrate commercially available technologies to build “practical cybersecurity solutions” for businesses, according to the center’s website.

“We do it through the demonstration of existing commercial, off-the-shelf technologies,” said Nathan Lesser, NCCOE’s deputy director. “We demonstrate challenges brought to us by industries are solvable.”

Twenty-three different businesses collaborate, he said, including Cisco, Intel, Microsoft and Symantec.

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Becoming a U.S. hub for civil cybersecurity solutions is the goal, adds Sally Sternbach, acting director of the Montgomery County Department of Economic Development. Since the NCCOE was established in 2012, said Jeffrey Wells, executive director of cyberdevelopment for the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, workforce development in cybersecurity has grown there.

An October 2014 study he cited by the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore says federal statistics show that region’s employment in cybersecurity to be 49 percent higher than the national average, primarily because of the proximity to the nation’s capital. And Wells says 16 of 17 community colleges and 15 four-year colleges in Maryland have some type of cybersecurity program.

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