The University of Central Arkansas will establish a cybersecurity system available to students statewide in kindergarten through college with the help of $500,000 in state funds, Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced Wednesday.
Called a cyber range, the system will simulate Internet traffic and allow students to identify a cyberattack, defend against one and learn to predict and prevent other attacks -- all while not damaging or affecting the Internet.
"Arkansas is clearly in the front" in computer science education, Hutchinson said at a Capitol news conference. "We're leading. We're in the cutting edge."
"The threat from cyber crimes is very real," said Hutchinson, a former undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. "It is a threat to our country" and to "every industry group."
The announcement follows news of several major cybersecurity breaches, the latest involving personal data such as Social Security numbers and credit-card numbers at Equifax Inc., one of the nation's largest credit-reporting companies.
In a news release, the governor's office described the program as "the first educational cyber range in the region" and said Arkansas would be the nation's first state to implement a range with secondary and higher education curricula at its foundation.
Hutchinson said the $500,000 came from his office's leftover discretionary funds from last year. He made that money available to the state Department of Higher Education to give to UCA so that the Conway-based university could "build the next generation of cyber warriors."
Joining Hutchinson at the news conference were UCA President Houston Davis; Stephen Addison, UCA's dean of the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics; and Courtney Pledger, director of the Arkansas Educational Television Network, which is based at UCA.
AETN will collaborate with UCA to develop and distribute educational materials, content and programming to support the teaching topics and technologies related to the cyber range. These will include courses, tutorials, game-based learning and local, regional and statewide competitions.
UCA hopes to begin an interdisciplinary bachelor's degree in cybersecurity in the fall of 2018.
"We proposed bringing a cyber range here to UCA in support of our developing a cybersecurity degree program," Addison said. "With the cyber range, we will be able to inject viruses onto the range without putting a free-roaming virus on the Internet. Students will be able to learn cybersecurity in real-time systems."
Addison said the growing need for people skilled in cybersecurity has created more job opportunities and will help preserve other jobs, such as those at a small business that might otherwise be shut down because of a cyber attack.
The cyber range also will provide an additional way for Arkansas teachers to learn about cybersecurity in professional-development classes.
While the system's capacity will have limits, Hutchinson said he envisions another state seeking to schedule some time on the UCA cyber range for its own higher-education professionals.
"I would expect this to grow and grow rapidly," Addison said.
Through the cyber range, students will learn how to detect what Addison called "hostile traffic." Eventually these students can learn of ways to stop cyber breaches "before they actually happen."
Addison estimated that the program would require annual upgrade software and maintenance at a cost of roughly $20,000 to $30,000 a year.
If the program takes off, it might require "an additional [monetary] investment," but its development is fully funded, Hutchinson said.
AETN and UCA also will work together to seek public and private funding sources to support cybersecurity education in Arkansas schools, according to a memorandum of understanding the two signed.
UCA's Davis said some local businesses already have agreed to help with some funding related to the cyber range.
Information for this article was contributed by Michael R. Wickline of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
State Desk on 10/05/2017