The AFCEA Educational Foundation and Cypher path LLC, a new cyber security education company, launched by cybersecurity experts, have signed an agreement that will enable AFCEA’s Professional Development Center (PDC) to be the go-to provider of cybersecurity education and training programs for AFCEA individual and corporate members.

A recent task force report from the U.S. House of Representatives articulates the state of government cybersecurity and what the United States must do to prevent future threats to national security. The report makes three key points:

• Cyber is a major national security issue. Top government, intelligence and military leaders oft en point to cyber as the issue that worries them the most—partly because it touches every aspect of life in the United States, as well as the nation’s military operations—and partly because U.S. laws and policies clearly have not kept up with the rapid changes in technology. Earlier this year, then- CIA Director Leon Panetta testified about his fear of a “cyber Pearl Harbor.”

• The threat is real and immediate. Essentially, every week there are news reports of some organizations or companies— ranging from the Defense Department to small businesses—that have had data stolen. To better appreciate the magnitude of the problem, most incidents are never made public. The potential damage involves far more than just stolen or damaged data.

• Cyber is connected to the economy and job creation. It is not just national security information that is being stolen from databases in the United States. All kinds of intellectual property are targeted. Information stolen from U.S. databases equals jobs stolen from the U.S. economy.

There are many stories of small businesses developing new products, being hacked, and finding copies of their new products flooding the market at cut-rate prices from countries such as China within a few months. To address these cyber threats and challenges, the federal government has established the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) to improve work force cybersecurity training. AFCEA’s new agreement with Cypherpath will map to these NICE guidances. Through this new collaborative eff ort with Cypherpath, AFCEA’s PDC will:

• Provide current and relevant cyber security training courses. The first offerings will be a Cybersecurity Executive Series of five one-day courses at AFCEA’s headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia, from February 20-24.

These courses include:

• • Cyber Warfare,
  • Cyber Terrorism,
  • Cyber Intelligence,
  • Cyber Diplomacy, and
  • Cyber-Threats—Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, Explosive, and Electromagnetic Pulse.

• Offer a Continuing Education Unit (CEU) program to sustain the cybersecurity work force. This program offers a CEU credentialing solution that maps CEUs to each user’s roles and to NICE role-based credentials, as well as supports DOD Directive 8570.01.  AFCEA conference attendees will have options to attend pre-approved sessions for CEU credit that can be applied to CompTIA A+, Network+ and Security continuing education programs, as well as for CISSP recertification’s.

AFCEA is dedicated to supporting the next generation of cyber-ready individuals who can protect the nation’s critical data. In addition to this new relationship with Cypher path, AFCEA has preferred partnerships with the University of Maryland College (UMUC) for distance education cybersecurity and information assurance degree and certificate programs, and with the Intelligence and Security Academy for cyber security education and cyber intelligence training courses.