New NICE Framework Creates Consistency for Employers and Agencies
The federal agency National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) recently held a national conference in Chicago to generate feedback on the President’s Executive Order for CyberSecurity Workforce Development which will quickly be followed by a Department of Defense response for cybersecurity workforce in national security. SecureSet was honored to be asked to serve on one of five panels at the conference and to contribute to the request for information on best practices in the cybersecurity industry.
Additionally, NIST in cooperation with other federal agencies, industry, and academia published its newest National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) framework to outline the critical functions in cybersecurity and identify functional knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies for each job function. Both these efforts are continuing steps to professionalize the cybersecurity workforce and define the terminology that makes the career field effective in defending national security and critical national economic functions.
The NICE standards are a crucial step in standardizing language to inform hiring managers on the skills and knowledge professionals in the field require. They also serve as guides for academia to understand what type of skills, knowledge, and abilities must be developed through their curriculum. Higher education need to understand these standards to identify skills gaps in the workforce to be effective. NICE serves as the entry point for that conversation between higher education, the government, and industry.
Here at SecureSet we serve as a model to fill the technical gaps, but also serve as a bridge between academia and careers (industry, government, military, K-12) to fill the nation’s cybersecurity pipeline.
SecureSet aims to use the NICE framework as a guide to educating our students and working with our employer and higher education partners. To date, we have mapped the NICE framework to several of our curriculum areas to identify the effectiveness of NICE KSA mapping. We are also exploring the potential to support a more efficient assessment of students’ KSA as one of numerous means to assist employers on program outcomes.
SecureSet applauds the NIST leadership in developing standards which will further professionalize the cybersecurity workforce. We look forward to continuing to support NIST, NICE and the federal government leadership in building a world-class national cybersecurity pipeline.
SecureSet is a cybersecurity academy with the mission of transforming and securing the world by educating a new generation of cybersecurity professionals.
With campuses in Denver, CO, Colorado Springs, CO and Tampa, FL, SecureSet aims to provide the most complete, immersive and compressed cybersecurity education out there, in order to help career seekers secure their future and the future of organizations and information worldwide.
We provide a welcoming and challenging classroom environment as well as the necessary community support to help aspiring security professionals learn and grow their skills.
