Salve program trains for ‘secure’ jobs in digital age

Joe Provost, CEO of Syncstate Inc. in Holden, Mass., needed to find thieves who stole a manufacturing company’s intellectual property and products, so he picked two Salve Regina University students to work on the case.
“I put them right in the middle of this thing,” Provost recalled, noting that their involvement led to the identification and location of seven “bad actors” in Korea and China.
One of those students was Lindsay Rolfe, 21, of Stonington, Conn., who graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree from the university’s Department of Administration of Justice. In addition, she has started pursuing a master’s degree in the administration of justice and homeland security with a concentration in cybersecurity and intelligence and will graduate in the spring of 2015, she said.
At Syncstate, Rolfe is working 25 hours a week as a level 1 analyst. The firm specializes in cyberintelligence – protecting small and large companies from the theft of intellectual property and reacting to theft when it occurs, Provost said.
“She knew exactly how to take the tools and … [to] target the right information,” he said. “It’s the ability to ask the right question to get the data that we rely on.”
Rolfe has natural analytical abilities, Provost said.
“It is something that can be taught, but when somebody has it naturally, they understand what you’re looking for,” he said. “She doesn’t make a judgment call until we have all the data, and she also knows the best way to prove a theory is to try and disprove it. I didn’t have to teach that. It came naturally to her. She’s one of the brightest students I’ve seen.”
The demand for cybersecurity and intelligence professionals is escalating at the rate of more than 11 percent a year, according to “Professionalizing Cyber-security: A path to universal standards and status,” a study released July 28 through the Pell Center at Salve Regina. As experts called for a professional organization to better standardize training, the university’s 2½-year-old graduate program with its concentration in cybersecurity and intelligence is seeing stronger demand. Twenty employers are involved in internships or tapping into the program for hiring, said David Smith, chairman of the DAJ. He is also program director for the master’s degree with its special concentration in cybersecurity and intelligence. Some of those employers include Raytheon IDS of Portsmouth; Rite-Solutions Inc. and American Systems, both of Middletown, and iCorps of Boston, he said.
This past year, Salve Regina had 104 students in the DAJ and Homeland Security graduate program, as compared with 72 students a year prior – an increase of 44.4 percent. A majority of those 104 students are taking the master’s program with the concentration in cybersecurity and intelligence, said Smith.
Fifteen students are actively interning this summer at several companies, as well as in traditional law enforcement and with federal agencies including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, he added.
Smith and Brandon Catalan, a cyber network defense manager at Raytheon and an adjunct professor in the administration of justice graduate program at Salve Regina, say one of the key techniques Salve students are taught is how to write well and craft a technical report, with an executive summary and data to back it up. Rolfe agreed having that training was key.
“The successful candidates will know how to write well but in technical report formats,” said Smith. “What we’re hearing from companies are: ‘Wow! Who are these kids?’ ”
Added Catalan: “We look for students to graduate as a jack of all trades. We’re trying to instill in them pieces of cyberintelligence; computer forensics; the ability to reverse engineer malicious code; cybermanagement skills and … a leadership approach.”
Curiosity and a bent for crime-solving round out the top talent, he said. At Rite-Solutions, a small company that focuses on engineering, information technology and human-capital development services, four Salve students have come through internships, said company President Dave Fabianski.
“What we see at Salve is not just a focus on the technical expertise associated with cybersecurity – facts, concepts and principles – but [also] an understanding of how businesses and industry need to employ and practice sound cybersecurity activities,” Fabianski said. “The business context we see is above and beyond just the technical certification.”
Michael Carmack, 23, of Pawcatuck, Conn., is a cybersecurity analyst at Rite-Solutions who completed his master’s degree with the concentration in cybersecurity and intelligence in May 2013 and has been working full time at the company since December.
Besides honing his public speaking skills, Carmack said the graduate program taught him how to manage “the delicate balance between productivity and security.”
“Cybersecurity doesn’t live in the IT department,” he said, “it lives in the culture of the company. The C-suite has to be onboard and so do other employees.”
Fabianski said Carmack is quick, efficient and clear in communicating to the workforce about potential or real threats.
Carmack also has “an understanding of what the balance sheet [is] and the brand impact when it comes to cybesecurity,” Fabianski said: “How a penetration or data loss or compromise [can] affect our balance sheet and standing in the community as a reliable supplier to our customers.”
Carmack had to redirect his desired career in Air Force intelligence after he suffered a knee injury.
“I come from a heavy law enforcement and military family, so I knew I was always going into something along those lines: law enforcement, investigation,” he said. “Now, I’m creating the marriage between the new cyber threat and old-time investigation. It’s a great field because it’s not stale and it’s never going to be stale.” •

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