Lehigh Carbon Community College has joined the ranks of other Pennsylvania higher education institutions that have been recognized by the National Security Agency and Department of Homeland Security for its cyber defense programs.

In April, the school was designated as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense for their two-year education program. LCCC is the first community college and one of only 10 learning institutions to earn the honor in Pennsylvania.

“Prospective schools are designated after meeting stringent CAE criteria and mapping curricula to a core set of cyber defense knowledge units,” the NSA’s Central Security Service website reads, with topics such as cyber threats, data analysis, cryptography, policy, ethics and more serving as focus areas.

As Susan M. Miner, associate professor of computer science and networking at the School of Communication Arts, Computers, and Technology said, LCCC was actually ahead of the curve when it comes to creating an immersive cyber security program.

“These organizations, they foresaw this huge need for cyberprofessionals, and they needed to find a way ensure that the schools are covering the right material,” she said.

“I heard them talking about this program, and I said that our degree program already covers this.”

Over the past two years, Miner has worked with the organizations to get the school certified and students recognized for their work.

“We went after this because we wanted to demonstrate that students coming out of LCCC met the academic rigor and requirements of the very best,” she said.

The National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense designation is invaluable for graduating students, as it illustrates a thorough understanding of concepts and practices that are considered the highest priority to two of the largest employers in the cyber security world — the NSA and the DHS.

Even outside of those institutions, according to CyberSeek, there are currently over 8,000 cyber security jobs currently available throughout Pennsylvania alone.

Whether in a professional or civilian circumstance, Miner said that a strong focus on cyber security is absolutely necessary in the modern age, where people are always connected, but most have no idea how to keep themselves safe.

“Anyone that’s alive who has a computer, phone or wireless device, they have a security risk,” she said. “Look at what happened with Facebook. The average person has no idea what has really occurred.”

Miner now hopes that LCCC will become the epicenter of cyber security for the area.

“We are striving to be the place in the Lehigh Valley that people can come to with any cyber security questions,” she said.