USM Celebrates Cybersecurity Career Awareness Week with Guest Speaker
Tue, 10/10/2023 - 08:49am | By: Ivonne Kawas
The University of Southern Mississippi’s (USM) School of Computing Sciences and Computer Engineering (CSCE), in partnership with the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education,
led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology within the U.S. Department
of Commerce, announced that it will celebrate Cybersecurity Career Week (CCW) from
Oct. 16-21 and will host a guest speaker Mitch Edwards on Oct. 17 at 4 p.m. in Gonzales
Auditorium (LAB 108) on the Hattiesburg Campus.
The guest speaker, Mitch Edwards, Founder/CEO of a startup GrabbrApp, is an experienced software engineer with 6+ years of experience providing software engineering, system design and administration, and information security services. His startup, GrabbrApp, is a network intelligence collection platform that enables companies to research malicious infrastructure at scale securely. The event is free and open to the public and business community.
“As technology evolves and cybersecurity threats continue to grow, we aspire to equip our students with the skills needed to fill the need and demand for qualified cybersecurity candidates,” said Dr. Nick Rahimi, assistant professor of cybersecurity. “Our goal during this week is to generate awareness among our students about the wide range of cybersecurity job opportunities that they can pursue after completing our online cybersecurity program.”
Edwards graduated from the University of Mississippi with a degree in computer science and studied in UM's Chinese Language Flagship Program before moving into the threat intelligence industry, where he has worked as a threat intelligence analyst, software developer and detection engineer. He is currently working for a security startup building detections to stop malicious behavior on customer networks and works on his startup part-time as well.
The CCW aims to inspire, educate, and engage students and adults to pursue careers in cybersecurity. Cybersecurity Career Week takes place the third week in October during Cybersecurity Awareness Month and each day of the week-long celebration provides for learning about the contributions, innovations, and opportunities that can be found by exploring cybersecurity as a field of study or career choice.
Find more information about USM’s Cybersecurity BAS that can be completed 100% online.
Cybersecurity Career Outlook and Pathway
There are currently over 660,000 jobs open in cybersecurity in the U.S. according to CyberSeek and the national cybersecurity workforce is expected to experience a shortfall of 3.4 million cybersecurity professionals. This deficit could be filled by local talent if exposed early to available educational resources for career entry and adults if they are reskilled to assume cybersecurity work roles.
- Explore cybersecurity careers using the org interactive jobs heat map and career pathway portal.
- Download the Cybersecurity Workforce Demand Infographic
About Cybersecurity Career Week
The Cybersecurity Career Week is a week-long campaign to call attention to the contributions and innovations to society that cybersecurity practitioners make. It is a time to build awareness about the wide range of cybersecurity job opportunities, how cybersecurity plays a vital role in global society and showcase how building a nation's cybersecurity workforce enhances each nation's security and promotes economic prosperity.