Digital Defense and UTSA partnership to further enrich the students’ cybersecurity education
Digital Defense and The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) Department of Computer Science jointly announced a partnership that will provide students and faculty with access to an award-winning cloud-based information security platform to further enrich the students’ cybersecurity education.
UTSA students and faculty will be able to utilize Digital Defense’s flagship Frontline.Cloud platform to evaluate the security posture of applications, systems and networks in classroom and lab environments both on and off campus.
With Frontline.Cloud, students will not only be able to assess the security posture of software applications and systems they build and run on lab networks, but when coupled with the supervision and course curriculum provided by UTSA faculty they will also learn how to use industry recognized tools to establish and execute an effective vulnerability lifecycle management program.
UTSA will have access to three different systems available on the Frontline.Cloud platform. These systems will provide students with vulnerability and web application scanning capabilities, and Digital Defense’s new threat scanning solution (Frontline Active Threat Sweep), which allows testing for hidden threats on target networks.
Mark Robinson, assistant professor in practice in the UTSA College of Sciences, will use the Frontline.Cloud platform in the classroom with his students this fall.
“As the home of the nation’s top program in cybersecurity, UTSA is committed to developing partnerships that provide our students with unparalleled learning experiences so they can become the most competitive candidates in the marketplace,” said Robinson.
“Frontline.Cloud is an incredibly powerful platform with a host of capabilities that will allow UTSA students and researchers to test their systems, applications and networks before they move into a production-style environment. We are also excited to evaluate integration possibilities for Frontline.Cloud into our security research and competitive events.”
“The alliance of our two San Antonio-based organizations is a natural fit,” states Larry Hurtado, president & CEO at Digital Defense.
“We are excited to extend our existing relationship with UTSA, primarily focused on making paid internships available to UTSA students, to one that includes assisting UTSA faculty and students with more enhanced classroom cybersecurity learning.
“As a global Security SaaS platform technology firm, Digital Defense is pleased to provide access to Frontline.Cloud to UTSA, one of the world’s leading cybersecurity education institutions.
“Working together with UTSA we are able to provide a hands-on experience to students, enabling them to solve real-world information security challenges in a classroom setting. These types of skills are in high demand and the future will now be even brighter for these individuals as they enter the workforce.”
The UTSA Department of Computer Science offers bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees supporting a dynamic and growing program with over 1,300 undergraduates, 74 master’s students and 67 doctoral students.
Its major research units include the Institute for Cyber Security, which operates the FlexCloud and FlexFarm laboratories dedicated to both basic and applied cybersecurity research, and the Center for Infrastructure Assurance and Security (CIAS), which focuses on the cybersecurity maturity of cities and communities while also conducting national cyber security defense competitions for college and high school students. The department’s research and experimental facilities are supported by federal research and infrastructure grants.
San Antonio is home to one of the largest concentrations of cybersecurity experts and industry leaders outside Washington, D.C., which uniquely positions the city and UTSA to lead the nation in cybersecurity research and workforce development.