NIST Cybersecurity Workforce RFI Comments – 07-29-17

This is the second in a series of blog posts looking at the comments that NIST has received on their request for information (RFI) on cyber workforce development. The comments are posted to the NIST National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) web site. The earlier post in the series was:

NIST Cybersecurity Workforce RFI Comments – 07-22-17

Comments posted (16) this week came from:

AFLCMC/HNJC

Albany State University

Bay College*

Bay Path University*

Brigham Young University*

Chris Kelsall*

Drexel University

Fairleigh Dickinson University*

itSM Solutions LLC*

James Cole

Jim Fox

Lake Superior College*

National Motor Freight Traffic Association, Inc

Scholarships for Women Studying Information Security (SWSIS) *

United States Department  of Health and Human Services*

University of Maine  at Fort Kent

Issues addressed include:

• The private sector vs government pay differential;

• The use of Cyber Security Gaming and Simulations Cloud (CGSC) academies to engage K12 students and teachers;

• The lack of standard metrics or data for cybersecurity education, training, and workforce development programs;

• The NIST NICE Regional Alliances for Multistakeholder Partnerships Program (RAMPS);

• The  NCSF Controls Factory™ model created by Larry Wilson, CISO in the university (U of Massachusetts) president’s office to engineer, operate and manage the business risk of a NIST Cybersecurity Program;

• Vehicle cybersecurity workforce development program paper;

• The Scholarships for Women Studying Information Security (SWSIS) program; and

• Support for academic training programs.

A much higher percentage of respondents attempted to specifically answer the question that were posed in the RFI document (marked with *). Those responses may be worth reading depending on the amount detail one is looking for in the RFI. NIST will certainly pay close scrutiny to those submissions.