Cooperative Local Internships as a Novel Innovation in Cybersecurity

Mount Hood Community College, Gresham OR

Investigators

Abstract

There are more than 28 million small businesses in the US, and while an individual business may not be concerned with cybersecurity, the data suggests that alarmingly few are adequately protecting data, including customer data like billing addresses and credit card numbers. Improving the cybersecurity environment for small businesses benefits businesses directly through costs savings that result when threats, and corresponding downtime are avoided, and earnings realized with uninterrupted business operations. The public benefits more broadly since it is most often their data, and their bank accounts, that are compromised when a system is hacked or breached. To address these challenges, this project at Mt Hood Community College (MHCC) in Oregon is designed to advance efforts to support the statewide small business cybersecurity environment through Cooperative Local Internships as a Novel Innovation in Cybersecurity (CLINIC). CLINIC will create the infrastructure for ongoing efforts at the college to produce highly qualified technicians in response to local and regional workforce demands, and further support work in the field by creating a cybersecurity toolbox geared towards the needs of small businesses. The CLINIC project aims to begin the process to answer the following long-term research question: How, and in what ways, does providing the small business community with access to a better trained cybersecurity workforce, in conjunction with cybersecurity resources, impact the small business cybersecurity environment? Within the scope of this capacity building project, the Co-PIs will examine two smaller sub-questions: (1) How, and in what ways, does the CLINIC internship model improve alignment between the cybersecurity program and workforce demand? and (2) Does providing support and technical assistance to small businesses increase the efficacy of cybersecurity toolbox resources? The CLINIC internship will provide students the opportunity to use the tools and resources, particularly a self-assessment tool, in a guided, real-life environment. The existing cybersecurity program offerings and career pathway will be refined to include a small business cybersecurity option, featuring stackable cybersecurity credentials for small business environments that double as both cybersecurity associate degree program requirements and stand-alone certifications. An expanded survey of Oregon small businesses will result in continued alignment of project and program components and allow feedback to inform project activities continually refined through the external evaluation process. This project will utilize the evidence-based approaches of career pathways and internships to contribute to, and underpin, a broader effort to transform the regional small business cybersecurity environment through a multi-pronged approach that increases technicians in the workforce, and connects the workforce with stackable small business cybersecurity certifications. The project will examine how and in what ways self-assessment tools are utilized by small businesses to prevent and respond to cybersecurity threats, how having access to these tools in combination with a cybersecurity literate workforce impacts the business environment with respect to cybersecurity, and how this project may be best replicated in other settings through an evaluation of the utility of the deliverables. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.