MAGIC’s Cyber Jobs Initiative seeks to provide rural areas with access to educational and workforce development support to bridge the employment gap we see in the cybersecurity industry. A lot of companies, whether small or large, do not realize the undue risk they bring upon themselves by not having someone licensed involved with their technology oversight.
Research on the subject backs our assertion that companies show enthusiasm for this change, but there’s a gap between initial effort and CISO job creation. There is increasing interest, but not necessarily more knowledge on how to implement a cybersecurity infrastructure into a company; this is where MAGIC comes in.
By supplying local businesses with either a) the information to direct them to a reliable local cybersecurity agency to meet their needs or b) providing them with the assessment and information they need to hire for the position in-house, MAGIC will effectively create the opportunity for new jobs and demands for careers in cybersecurity. It will also supply organizations hoping to make a jump in size to have a reliable source about technology input from an impartial third party with reliability.
The benefits of tech development in rural areas are clearly game-changers. Data bears out that places with people trained in digital skills are more equipped to survive in today’s increasingly digital society, and that digital society will have increasing vulnerabilities that will be served by cybersecurity.
Cyber Jobs was previously funded by a USDA Rural Business Development grant, and is currently supported by funding provided by the Rural Maryland Council.
Student Intern Experiences
The need for cyber professionals is at a critical need. Small businesses and entrepreneurs need to protect their important data from the attacks and misuse from today’s cyber criminals. MAGIC’s goal is to give students aged 16+ real world experience and in the process, help companies discover their security weaknesses.
Our Student Intern Experience places high school students interested in cybersecurity with an employer for a 4 week internship. This internship allows the student to gain experience working in an organizations infrastructure while giving the company an opportunity to pay forward and receive a cybersecurity benefit.
Here is how it works
MAGIC will schedule an initial consultation with an interested company. Once an understanding of what the needs are, we will place a student for a 4 week/ 32 hour paid internship. The students goal is to audit the companies’ systems and document any inconsistencies and holes they may find in the company network structure that could lead to a breach of their networks.
Auditing of the company systems could consist of:
- Testing user credentials and user security policies
- Testing and documenting file security structures
- Testing and recommending enhancements to current backup/restore processes. Or recommend a backup/restore process if none is in place.
- Document SLAs (Service-Level Agreements) with any 3rd party vendors the company may use. (quickbooks online, hosted websites, etc) and explain why this is important
- Some penetration testing of public facing services. (websites, VPNs, FTP sites)
The 4 week time constraint will limit the amount of time a student will spend on each of the listed categories, so we will make every effort to define the company’s most critical needs.
As this is a learning experience, during the 4 week internship, the student will be assigned a professional mentor that will work with the student in achieving the necessary skills and knowledge. MAGIC will assign an external professional from our approved list of volunteers. This will allow the student to have an additional resource for questions or concerns. It also gives the company the added benefit of having a tech professionals knowledge base available.
At the end of the 4 weeks, MAGIC will schedule a final consultation with the participating company to go over the final documentation and help the employer with recommendations. This may include their need for policy changes and/or whether a new security role within the company is needed.
This will be a paid internship for the student. The intern will work no more than 8 hours a week for 4 weeks at a cost of $500 to be paid directly to the student. The initial and final consultations from MAGIC as well as the tech professionals oversight is a free service to the participating company. MAGIC’s endgame is to help aspiring cybersecurity students get experience and help our local community partners be a little safer in today’s cyber climate.
By participating in this program, some benefits to the company include:
- Paying forward to the next generation of cybersecurity professionals
- Understanding your cybersecurity needs and how attacks could affect you
- Finding your most critical holes and filling them before a cyber attack hits
- Creating a security plan now, so you can grow your business
Interested businesses can contact Graham Dodge at gdodge@magicinc.org for more information or to schedule a consultation.