Emporia State University unveiled the new Cybersecurity Research and Outreach Center on the 5th floor of Cremer Hall last Friday. Present at the ceremony were Senator Jerry Moran, Director of Cybersecurity Research and Outreach Center (CyROC) Leticia Rust, and Dean of the Business and Technology School Ed Bashaw.
The new cybersecurity center is funded in combination by a $1.5 million dollar grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and $1.1 million dollars from the Kansas state budget.
ESU’s investment in cybersecurity places ESU in a competitive cybersecurity education ecosystem; Fort Hays State University, Kansas State University, The University of Kansas, and Wichita State are all currently recognized National Security Agency Center of Academic Excellence Institutions. These NCAE-C schools partner with the National Security Agency to ensure comprehensive standards in-line with the current cybersecurity threat environment and job market.
“Cybersecurity is only 20 percent technology and 80 percent human interaction. That’s a really big incentive for cybersecurity awareness and teaching,” said Director of CyROC Leticia Rust. A large portion of cybersecurity-related breaches are caused by social engineering, where an attacker will manipulate a person to get access to information and authorization which they shouldn’t have access to. IBM’s 2023 Cost of a Data Breach report indicates that the average cost of cybersecurity breaches initiated through social engineering averaged $4.5 million dollars in costs.
Cybersecurity is currently offered as a concentration within computer science at ESU by taking four courses: Introduction to Cybersecurity, Network Security, Analytics for Cybersecurity, and Penetration Testing of Application and Network. KU, K-State, WSU, and FHSU each currently offer independent cybersecurity degrees.
A large impetus for ESU’s program has been the demand for cybersecurity jobs.
“EnterpriseKC says there are 3,600 cybersecurity jobs open in Kansas now. That’s $350 million dollars in unrealized annual income.” said Kansas Senator Jerry Moran.
EntepriseKC’s most recent estimate places the number of open cybersecurity jobs at 8,500 in Kansas with approximately one-third of those jobs requiring less than a two-year degree. Cyberseek, a tool and organization partnered with businesses in cybersecurity, estimates that the United States can currently fill an estimated 72% of all cybersecurity jobs in the country. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, Cyberseek indicates that the U.S. had more workers than the demand for cybersecurity required, although the number of open cybersecurity jobs has sharply increased since 2020.
