Forge Institute Cyber Training Bootcamp to provide Arkansas’ workforce with a cyber upgrade
Forge Institute announced today that new openings are available for its next Cyber Training Bootcamp. The availability of enrollment is a response to a string of highly publicized cyberattacks that have targeted the nation’s energy, beef and other critical infrastructure organizations.
“There is no better defense against hackers than a well-trained workforce,” says Lee Watson, Founder and CEO of Forge Institute. “The recent JBS cyber hack brought significant disruption to the beef industry and cost the company millions of dollars. It’s critical that companies invest in cybersecurity training for everyone on the org chart.”
The Forge Institute Cyber Training Bootcamp starts on July 7th and is a part-time, 14-week training program designed to take employees or new hires with an information technology background or earned or learned transferable skills, and provide them an on-ramp to becoming a Cybersecurity Defender.
The Cyber Training Bootcamp has become increasingly popular since Forge Institute launched the first in February 2020. To date, many companies from the financial, healthcare, data management and other data-driven industries have enrolled staff members into the program.
Acxiom is among the companies that’ve previously enrolled associates in the Cyber Training Bootcamp. Beth-Anne Bygum, Chief Security & Compliance Officer for Acxiom, agrees that employees are a company’s first and most important line of cyber defense.
“Acxiom is a company that takes pride in being responsible stewards of data,” says Bygum. “Through Forge Institute, we’re training our staff to not only manage the data but to help ensure that it remains in safe hands.”
Financial institutions and healthcare companies continue to be prime targets of hackers. But the JBS hack proves that any industry can be a victim to high-cost ransomware attacks.
“Cybercriminals don’t recognize borders,” says Watson. “What happened to JBS can happen to our poultry, agriculture and logistics industries as well. We need to be cyber-vigilant on a statewide scale.”