From left: Under Secretary of Commerce Don Graves, Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and NIST Director Lori E. Locasio, Maryland Commerce Secretary Kevin Anderson and Montgomery County Executive Mark Elrich sign a cooperative agreement at the NIST National Cyber Security Center. excellence.
Credit:
Rich Press/NIST
ROCKVILLE, Md. – The Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), State of Maryland, and Montgomery County, Maryland, have renewed their partnership to support the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE), a joint center. experts from industry, government, and academia work together to address pressing cybersecurity challenges.
The heads of the three organizations, Commerce Undersecretary for Standards and Technology and NIST Director Lori E. Locasio, Maryland Commerce Secretary Kevin Anderson and Montgomery County Executive Mark Elrich signed a five-year agreement yesterday at the NCCoE in Rockville, extending their partnership. , Maryland.
Established in 2012, NCCoE helps businesses secure their information technology systems with practical solutions based on industry standards, best practices and commercially available technologies. The center also collaborates with researchers and technology vendors to provide direction on industry-specific challenges such as securing healthcare data, protecting financial transactions and protecting critical infrastructure.
At the event, U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce Don Graves called the NCCoE “an ideal place and vehicle for federal, state and local governments to join forces and address tough cybersecurity issues.”
Graves also announced the launch of the NIST Small Business Cybersecurity Community of Interest (COI). “This initiative will help ensure that NIST’s guidance is both meaningful and practical for use by smaller companies and other organizations,” he said. “In addition to benefiting the NCCoE and its participants, this new community of interest promises to improve the return on all of NIST’s investments in cybersecurity research, standards, guidelines, and practices.”
Interested in joining NIST’s new Small Business Cybersecurity Community? Learn more here.
Also at the event, NIST Director Locascio thanked the State of Maryland and Montgomery County, Maryland for their commitment to the NCCoE and highlighted the companies that are part of the center’s Cybersecurity Excellence Partnership. They have “provided NCCoE with tremendous resources and inspired creativity in cybersecurity solutions that are now available and used by many companies, government agencies and other organizations,” he said.
One of the goals of the renewed partnership agreement is to better address the needs of companies and institutions across the state and province, with a special focus on small businesses. With that goal in mind, the agreement signed yesterday calls on state and county governments to expand their efforts to facilitate NCCoE’s relationship with Maryland companies. In addition, the new community of interest announced yesterday offers many ways for small companies to collaborate and take greater advantage of NCCoE’s capabilities and solutions.
The agreement also aims to strengthen NCCoE’s ties to local public schools and academic institutions across the state. These relationships are central to NCCoE’s efforts to support the development of a skilled cybersecurity workforce, which it does in part through student internships.
Organizations interested in working with the NCCoE, State of Maryland and Montgomery County on cybersecurity issues should contact NCCoE atnccoe [at] nist.gov:.