Montana State earns cyber defense center designation
Montana State University on Monday announced that the National Security Agency has granted the institution a designation as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense.
The designation is a recognition of the university’s programs designed to promote defense of the nation’s cybersecurity assets as it prepares a workforce in need of additional talent.
“The NSA puts a lot of weight on this certification,” Clemente Izurieta, a professor of computer science in the Gianforte School of Computing in MSU’s Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering, said in a press release. “On a very high level, we now have a validated cybersecurity curriculum in alliance with National Security Agency standards.”
That designation, which at Montana State runs through 2030, and others are enjoyed by institutions around the nation doing similar work in advancing the nation’s cyber defense. The University of California, Santa Cruz, for instance, earned a similar federal designation last October for its work in cybersecurity research.
In Montana, Izurieta said it took four years to organize designation, which included graduating three classes of students in its cyber master’s program, along with faculty demonstrating expertise in the field.
