DHS now providing state, local, tribal and territorial cyber professionals with free cybersecurity training

On June 25, Greg Touhill, DHS Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Cybersecurity & Communications, released the following information:

America needs a strong cyber workforce to keep up with evolving technology and increasing cybersecurity risks.  To help meet this need, DHS has expanded access to the Federal Virtual Training Environment (FedVTE) – an online training center featuring a wide range of cybersecurity courses – to state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) government employees across the country.

Sponsored by DHS and supported by the Department of Defense’s Defense Information Systems Agency, FedVTE provides:

• Government-wide, on-demand access to cybersecurity training to help the workforce maintain expertise and foster operational readiness;
• Courses ranging from beginner to advanced levels;
• Training available at no cost to users; and
• Training accessible from any internet-enabled computer.

On average, FedVTE delivers more than 35,000 hours of training per month and in 2014 alone, FedVTE saved the federal government approximately $72 million in training costs.

DHS is coordinating outreach about the program to SLTT governments through the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), which is a part of the nonprofit Center for Internet Security. With a mission to improve the overall cyber security posture of SLTT governments, the MS-ISAC is the focal point for cyber threat prevention, protection, response, and recovery for the nation’s SLTT governments.  SLTT government personnel are be able to access the system at fedvte.usalearning.gov.

Source: DHS