“He saw an education gap and he wanted to fill that education and training gap that, on the commercial side, they just couldn’t do,” said John Seibel, who started as GoCyber Collective’s executive director last September.
GoCyber Collective recognizes that a cyber-awareness gap exists for everyday citizens, IT data professionals and even C-level positions, such as CEOs and CFOs, Seibel said.
“The cyber security risks in the number of cyber attacks that we get are real,’ he said. “They’re staggering.”
GoCyber Collective brings together, on the third Wednesday of every month, information managers and data professionals across the spectrum of all industries, be it from school districts, law enforcement and city governments to health care, finance and construction, “you name it,” Seibel said.
“We come together for networking support (and) we talk about the cyber landscape ... the challenges that they’re seeing, the threats that they’re seeing, and we talk about how to navigate through that,” he said.
In addition, each meeting features a speaker who talks for about 45 minutes on a relevant topic, Seibel said.
The collective’s training program, Go Cyber Academy, offers courses on active directory hacking, web application hacking, threat intelligence and forensics, he said.
“These classes upskill these workers so they’re better equipped to see it, identify it, be able to navigate around it, do a little bit of forensics (themselves) on this,” he said. “We like to make sure that all the data professionals are cyber first responders. If there’s ever an event that they can take some steps right away before you have to call the authorities if something major happens.
“Immediately, what was a cyber threat was neutralized just by our collective’s communication.”
In just a few months, GoCyber Collective has grown by 20% to more than 600 participants because “instead of building walls, we’re tearing those down, and we’re building safety nets and support,” Seibel said.
All of GoCyber Collective’s participants use the Signal app for real-time threat alerts, neutralizing potential cyberattacks, he said.
The curriculum for GoCyber Academy is developed in partnership with CyberProAI in Israel, Seibel said.
GoCyber Academy also attempts to help educate vulnerable populations via Heart Lanes, its community-first initiative offering courses like “Safe Senior Surfing” and “Healthy Digital Families.”
“We want to give the parents the resources, the conversation starters to have with the kids, and also so they know which red flags to watch out for, both the parents, so they can be active, and also the kids, because not everybody on Instagram is there with good intentions,” he said.
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