UA Global Campus to offer five-day cyber security certification course

Metova CyberCENTS, an Illinois-based network security company, will teach a five-day cyber security workshop Feb. 19-23 at the University of Arkansas Global Campus in Rogers.

Participants may take the National Institutes of Standards and Technology Enterprise Network Defense Training exam on the last day of class to earn a certificate.

The class “provides basic knowledge and practical skills needed for cyber security personnel to defend, respond, report, mitigate and restore enterprise systems before, during and after an exploitation has occurred,” according to the UA.

“The time to learn defense is not during or after an attack,” Josh Smith, chief strategy officer for Metova CyberCENTS, said in a UA press release. “Security staff need training against real attack traffic before it happens to be completely prepared when it does.”

Workshop participants will engage with the same cyber range platform used by the U.S. Air Force, Army and Navy to train in detecting and defending against malicious events, according to the UA.

The cost is $1,999 for Arkansas residents and $2,400 for those from out of state. The workshop is supported in part by a grant from the Arkansas Department of Higher Education.

An instructor from Metova CyberCENTS will teach theory, operation, defensive techniques and corrective action instruction using the cyber range platform, according to the school.

“The cyber security workshop is part of a new series launched in 2017 for up-skill training offered through the IT Readiness Program to help developers and technology professionals advance their careers,” according to the press release.

The Global Campus Rogers provides workforce development and continuing education classes.

Metova CyberCENTS was founded in 2011.

Cyber security has been identified as a pervasive issue for organizational and community leaders.

It was a topic of discussion at the 2017 Northwest Arkansas Technology Summit in October at the John Q. Hammons Convention Center in Rogers.

During a panel discussion at the summit, Sheila Jordan, chief information officer of Symantec in the San Francisco Bay Area, said: “If you don’t think you’re getting breached, you are. Every company is getting breached. Every company is getting attacked,” she said.