In conjunction with MSPWorld 2022, the International Association of Cloud & Managed Service Providers (MSPAlliance®) today announced a new program designed to address the cybersecurity talent shortage facing the managed services profession. Featuring a partnership with Boise State University and Stellar Cyber, the program has an overall goal of creating Managed Service Provider (MSP)-specific business, technical, and cybersecurity training, along with job placement tools. The program will be launched in the coming months and will begin producing viable MSP security candidates for hire within the year.
This program will leverage existing cyber and general educational capabilities of organizations such as Boise State, combined with cybersecurity-specific training of students on actual technology tools used by MSPs, such as Stellar Cyber’s Open XDR platform. Further, MSPAlliance will be contributing MSP-specific business and operational content to make the students highly attractive to MSPs looking to fill positions.
“We have known for a long time that MSPs were facing difficulty in identifying, hiring, and training employees who had necessary skills,” said Celia Weaver, president and co-founder of MSPAlliance. “Through this partnership with Stellar Cyber and Boise State, we are taking the first steps to solving this problem and bringing much-needed help to the MSP profession.”
While many cybersecurity training programs do exist, they fall short of the specific needs of the global MSP profession in several areas. First, the candidates graduating from a vast number of traditional computer science programs are not being trained on current technologies used by MSPs. Second, the graduates do not possess the specific knowledge necessary to make them relevant to MSPs. Third, the graduates do not have relevant work experience, also needed to improve their utility to the MSP profession. This program will address all three of these issues.
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Boise State, a leader in cybersecurity education, will accelerate real-world training for new students as well as MSP analysts who want to upgrade their skillsets to offer Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) services. Boise State’s new Cyberdome leverages Stellar Cyber’s Open XDR platform in the University’s in-house MSSP service, which provides enterprise-class security to rural schools and communities throughout Idaho while significantly enhancing students’ cybersecurity skills in a real-world environment.
“At Boise State, we built this program to become a competency hub for new students as well as working analysts looking to broaden their skills to work effectively in a cybersecurity provider environment,” said Edward Vasko, CISSP and director of the Boise State Institute for Pervasive Cybersecurity. “With this announcement, the MSP industry now has a partner inside the education community that believes in the mission we’re trying to accomplish.”
“We are excited to help solve one of cybersecurity’s biggest business problems—talent shortage,” said Mark Porter, President and CEO at High Wire Networks, a Stellar Cyber Master MSSP Partner. “With our human capital management expertise and SOC services, we can help build a pipeline of security analysts who will help the MSP community reach their customers more effectively and efficiently.”
Stellar Cyber’s Open XDR platform provides the cybersecurity technology that underpins the Cyberdome program. Thanks to its ease-of-use and comprehensive, “everything detection and response” functionality and AI-driven analytics, the platform quickly prepares Boise State students for careers in cybersecurity.
“This is great news for MSPs who want to add security services to their offerings but can’t find any analysts to deliver it,” said Brian Stoner, vice president of MSSP at Stellar Cyber. “Our Open XDR platform is ideal for MSPs who want to capitalize on the hot market for cybersecurity services, and Boise State’s Cyberdome program has the potential of enabling security analysts to meet our industry partner demand.”
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