NEW Cyber Range at MassBay
The MassBay Community College Center for Cybersecurity Education was recently awarded $804,162 by the Healey-Driscoll Administration as part of a $1.14 million statewide commitment to increase cyber training. The grant funding will assist not only MassBay students studying cybersecurity but also the employees of municipalities and small businesses to train in a state-of-the-art physical lab environment capable of running exercises through Cyberbit cloud platform and learn how to secure networks and gain experience in this high-demand industry.
October 27, 2023 | MassBay Took Center Stage at CyberTrust Massachusetts
![MassCyberCenter Forum]( "MassCyberCenter Forum")
Two MassBay teams took home first and third place at the first ever CyberTrust Massachusetts Cyber Range Competition Award Ceremony in the Massachusetts State House on Friday, October 27, 2023. The two teams of students were on-hand to collect their recognition at the seventh annual Massachusetts Cybersecurity Forum.
The Forum is an event that brings together cybersecurity leaders from across the Commonwealth to promote the competitiveness of the state’s cybersecurity ecosystem, facilitate public and private partnerships, and highlight Massachusetts as a national leader for cybersecurity. In addition to the two Cyber Range Award winners, MassBay was represented by Assistant Vice President and Chief Information Officer Mike Lyons, who also serves as Vice Chair of the Higher Education Cybersecurity Coordinating Committee.
October 25, 2023 | MassBay Launches New Cyber Range with $804,162 Grant from the Healey-Driscoll Administration
![New Cybersecurity Center]( "New Cybersecurity Center")
Massachusetts Secretary of Education Patrick Tutwiler Tutwiler and Secretary of Public Safety and Security Terrence Reidy were on hand in Wellesley as MassBay opened its brand new, state of the art Cyber Range on Wednesday, October 25, 2023. The grant announcement was previously made by Lt. Governor Kim Driscoll at the third Massachusetts Municipal Cybersecurity Summit on October 5, 2023, which was organized by MassCyberCenter and served as a kickoff to Cybersecurity Awareness Month. MassBay became the third organization to be funded for a cyber range and the first to launch.
https://www.massbay.edu/massbay-cybersecurity
The MassBay Community College Center for Cybersecurity Education was recently awarded $804,162 by the Healey-Driscoll Administration as part of a $1.14 million statewide commitment to increase cyber training. The grant funding will assist not only MassBay students studying cybersecurity but also the employees of municipalities and small businesses to train in a state-of-the-art physical lab environment capable of running exercises through Cyberbit cloud platform and learn how to secure networks and gain experience in this high-demand industry
The state grant is part of the Commonwealth’s Security Operations Centers (SOC)/Cyber Range Initiative managed by the MassCyberCenter at MassTech, which supports programs that are aimed at building a new, diverse generation of cybersecurity professionals to grow the state’s workforce through education, training, and workforce development. A cyber range is a virtual environment, enabling users to hone their skills detecting, intercepting, and defending against simulated cyber-crimes. The range will bolster cyber resiliency at the local level by including SOCs. An SOC is the infrastructure that enables municipality and small business IT teams to actively monitor cyber threats and IT security vulnerabilities.
“This commitment to our cyber range and training will have a direct impact on our students and their future career success,” said MassBay computer science professor and director of the MassBay Center for Cybersecurity Education, Shamsi Moussavi. “This investment will also enable MassBay to establish essential partners in our region to fortify the overall cybersecurity necessary to compete in the modern economy.”
October 21, 2023 | Cybersecurity Festival
![Cybersecurity Festival]( "Cybersecurity Festival")
MassBay hosted its first ever Cybersecurity Festival at the Wellesley Hills campus for local high school and college students, their families, and adults interested in learning more about cybersecurity. Participants played cyber games, met cybersecurity faculty and students, and learned more about how cybersecurity impacts the world around us. The free, hands-on Festival enabled students to explore whether cybersecurity is a educational and/or career pathway for them, and it was a highlight of the College’s Cybersecurity Awareness month in 2023.
August 2, 2023 | White House Highlights MassBay’s Cybersecurity programs
![White House Highlights MassBay Cybersecurity Program]( "White House Highlights MassBay Cybersecurity Program")
In its release of the Biden-Harris Administration’s National Cyber Workforce and Education Strategy (NCWES) announcement, the White House mentioned MassBay’s cybersecurity programs specifically as a model program. With the NCWES, the Biden-Harris Administration intends to implement a “first-of-its-kind comprehensive approach aimed at addressing both immediate and long-term cyber workforce needs.” The goal of the NCWES is to make generational investments, filling hundreds of thousands of cyber job vacancies in the U.S. and strengthening our national security.
“The mention of MassBay’s cybersecurity agenda by the White House is an exciting reminder that what we are doing here at MassBay is a national priority,” said MassBay President David Podell. “The hands-on cybersecurity skills education we provide is being recognized by the White House because it strengthens our nation’s workforce, lifts people into jobs with good wages and upward mobility, and because it fortifies our industries, government, and communities against the growing cyber threats of today. It is a proud day for our students, alumni, faculty, staff, friends, and supporters – we are committed to continuing to grow our capacity for high-quality, practical training right here in the MetroWest.”
June 27 + 29, 2023 | Free Cybersecurity Workshop for High School Students
As part of its commitment to establishing partnerships in the region, MassBay invited high school students to its Wellesley Hills campus for a free cybersecurity workshop designed to grow their skills and introduce a potential educational and/or career pathway.
The workshop covered general cybersecurity principles, an engaging hands-on lab activity, and guidance from experienced cybersecurity professionals. Students tackled hands-on cybersecurity lab activities, solving puzzles of identifying and fixing cyber-attacks created specifically for the students.
MassBay Receives a Grant from Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MTC)
In 2018 MassBay received a grant from Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MTC), a public agency whose mission is to help the Commonwealth lead in the global digital economy, and in collaboration with STEMatch →, a non-profit organization. This project, Securing Leadership In Cybersecurity for the Commonwealth (SLICC), aimed to create hands-on, practical cybersecurity labs to prepare students for entry level jobs. Through this project, MassBay faculty (the POC for this application) in collaboration with Mimecast and Carbon Black created labs based on their tools to allow students to experiment with tools that cybersecurity professionals use in their everyday jobs to secure their networks.
Request Cybersecurity Program Information
The online world looks very different through the trained eyes of a cybersecurity professional. Securing networks, protecting company data, and guarding against hacks from outside are all in a day’s work for the tech-savvy experts working behind the scenes for practically every major business in the world. Our programs offer hands-on training on state-of-the-art equipment in our computer laboratories. Our academic programs align with the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) framework of the National Institute of Standards andTechnology.
There are over 9,000 unfilled cybersecurity jobs in Massachusetts alone. Take the next step and get more information.
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Cybersecurity Events Archive
The Center for Cybersecurity Education at MassBay Community College has sponsored a series of speakers on cybersecurity. Watch these programs now.
“Finding Your Footing in Cybersecurity” Virtual Panel
Featuring Meghan Martinez, Giana Dean, Arunima Sharma, and Lodrina Cherne
January 29, 2024
This was a panel featuring women across a range of roles in the cybersecurity field offering their advice and reflecting on their experiences.
“The Boston Marathon Bombing: Lessons Learned for Careers in Cybersecurity, Computer Forensics and Law Enforcement”
John Petrozzelli, MassCyberCenter | Director
October 30, 2023
John Petrozelli, Director of MassCyberCenter, gave a talk about his experiences as a day shift intelligence supervisor during the Boston Marathon Bombing manhunt. This talk covered the Marathon Bombing Manhunt timeline, post arrest triage, prosecution and forensic analysis, and lessons learned for students.
“The Road To Becoming An Ethical Hacker”
Jill Kamperides, OCD Technologies | Manager, IT Advisory Services Nick Pertetuo, OCD Technologies | IT Security Analyst
October 23, 2023
In this talk, ethical hackers, Jill and Nick discussed their experiences in the field and the challenges they have overcome to become successful in this exciting career of cybersecurity.
“Applications of Systems Thinking to Industrial Cybersecurity”
Shaharyar Khan, MIT Sloan School Of Management | Research Affiliate
October 11, 2023
In this presentation, Shaharyar presented the Cybersafety method — a Systems-thinking based approach — to identify weaknesses and vulnerabilities in Industrial Control Systems and lessons learned by applying to real-world systems. While many approaches are used in the industry to identify vulnerabilities, they are typically IT focused. In this presentation, he explored how we can bring a security context to what is essentially a system safety analysis — a key concern in ICS environments. Cybersafety is a method that goes beyond the technical layer and explores weaknesses and vulnerabilities in the entire hierarchical control structure of the organization (operational, organizational, leadership, etc.).
“A Conversation About Fraud”
Rob Higgins, Akamai Technologies | Principal Technical Account Manager In-Person Talk
October 4, 2023
In this session Rob touched on a few of the popular areas of financial services fraud and highlighed a few recent examples and use cases. Through the discussion, some of the connections between the behavior became clear as well as some of the evolutions in techniques.
“The One Thing to Know To Be Successful”
Karsten Chearis, Rapid7 Global Manager of Specialist Security Solutions Engineering
October 2, 2023
Karsten shared his story about his unusual ascent within the corporate ladder of cybersecurity and the challenges that came with it particularly when it came to race and a speech impediment.
MassBay Receives $1.2M in National Science Foundation Grants
Attracting the Next Generation Cybersecurity Workforce or ACT was awarded and is aimed at diversifying the Cybersecurity field by recruiting, retaining, and graduating underrepresented and female students in MassBay’s Cybersecurity programs. Through collaborations with regional industry and high school partners, MassBay is creating an education pipeline to encourage and support female and underrepresented high school students to pursue a Cybersecurity education.
A central part of this project will be the recruitment by high schools and youth organizations, working alongside industry partners to create competitions, hackathons, mentoring and internship programs, all designed to provide students with opportunities to engage in hands-on and experiential learning, career mentoring, and tailored career advice. This project has allowed us to create a small Cyber Range, where students use this online, interactive, and secure networking environment, learning to detect and protect against cybersecurity attacks.
Venturing into Cybersecurity
Presented by Patrick Berg, Senior Information Security Engineer at Advisor360°. The presentation was held on May 3, 2021. Patrick has worked in the cybersecurity field for 7 years. Following a career in hospitality, Patrick switched his career to cybersecurity. He first earned a degree at MassBay Community College, then proceeded to earn his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in the field.
A Journey into Cybersecurity
Presented by Noureen Njoroge, the Global Director of Cybersecurity at Nike. The presentation was held on April 12, 2021. Noureen is an award-winning advocate for women in cybersecurity and listed among the Top 30 Most Admired Minority Professionals in Cybersecurity. Noureen is also an alumna of MassBay!
Cybersecurity: The Present & Future
Presented by Kevin Burns, Draper’s Chief Information Security Officer. This presentation was held on April 6, 2021. Prior to his work at Draper, Kevin worked for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts ensuring the security and confidentiality of constituents’ data and private information.