MxD, the nation’s digital manufacturing institute, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) today announced the launch of a cybersecurity for manufacturing training program with nearly $650,000 from the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of Economic Adjustment (OEA).
The program’s target audience is current workers in manufacturing and adjacent industries. It is the first to focus on increasing these workers’ cybersecurity skills.
While manufacturers encounter typical business vulnerabilities such as stolen intellectual property, they also face unique threats because of increasingly connected manufacturing floors. A cybercriminal could infiltrate a facility and shut down a plant’s operations, or worse, program equipment to start making faulty parts without the manufacturers knowing it.
The program comes at a crucial time. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased remote work and remote manufacturing operations, which can make businesses more vulnerable to attack.
As a result, job openings in manufacturing cybersecurity, which were growing prior to the pandemic, are expected to grow more rapidly.