LAKELAND, Fla. — Florida Polytechnic University has partnered with a local tech firm to create a training ground where students learn to protect the university and businesses from cyber attacks.
Oscar Lin is gaining real-world experience in detecting and defending against cyber threats.
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“My job is to essentially go through all these emails and release the ones that should not be in there,” said Lin.
In just one month, Lin and other paid student interns have identified more than 70,000 threats in emails alone.
“We’re protecting the community. We’re here to stop the threat before they get to them,” Lin said.
The Security Operations Center (SOC) is a collaboration between Florida Poly and Lakeland-based cybersecurity firm Sittadel. Under the guidance of experienced professionals, students are monitoring live data and responding to simulated and actual cyber threats against the university and local businesses.
"We have all these different kinds of devices that are attached to our network. One of them is looking at what are the potential risks of having that device and the way it’s configured. Another student is looking at vulnerabilities that exist on different devices and how do I look at which ones are the most important to fix first,” said Jack Trainor, Chief Information Security Officer at Florida Poly.
Students will also be developing new cybersecurity solutions to identify and combat threats generated by artificial intelligence.
The partnership aims to meet workforce demands by preparing Polk County students for one of the state’s fastest-growing and highest-paying fields.
According to a report by the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, Bureau of Workforce Statistics and Economic Research, jobs for information security analysts are projected to grow 39.4% between 2021 and 2029.
“By creating an incubator, a space for them to do all the normal roles that you would have in a company, and actually figure out before they even get into the workforce where they sit on the range of seats —are they an engineer, analyst, architect? —and they can just hit the ground running with a company,” said Garrett Poorbaugh, Principal Architect at Sittadel.
As Sittadel expands, they hope to hire from Florida Poly graduates.
"I was 100% sure it was them."
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