Veterans – Do you know the training resources at your fingertips

POSTED June 28

Veterans – Do you know the training resources at your fingertips

Career tips career
Jim Lane

by CAPT James Lane, USN (Ret)

At Cyber Job Central, one of our goals is to deliver information to our community about training resources and opportunities that will benefit their career. As such, we don’t believe that we could possibly over-advertise free training which is available to our community. In this case, free cyber security courses are available to Active, Reserve or Retired Veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces.

There are several free, quality resources available to the veteran community. I will discuss several in this piece concentrating first on the Federal Virtual Training Environment (FedVTE). It is perhaps unsurprising that this training is being offered by the Department of Homeland Security in conjunction with the non-profit group Hire our Heroes. FedVTE possesses an extensive course catalog which is available to the community. While the course catalog includes broad topic knowledge courses such as CISA infrastructure training, our community may find the most immediate benefit to the Certification prep catalog which includes, among other courses:

  • CompTIA A+ (220-1001) Certification Prep
  • CompTIA A+ (220-1002) Certification Prep
  • Certified Ethical Hacker v10
  • Cyber Dark Arts
  • Cyber Awareness Challenge 2019
  • (ISC)2 (TM) CISSP Certification Prep 2018 – replaces 2015 version, which will be removed on 8/9/2019
  • Cyber Supply Chain Risk Management
  • Cryptocurrency for Law Enforcement
  • (ISC)2 (TM) CISSP:ISSMP Prep 2018
  • CompTIA Network+ N10-007
  • (ISC)2 (TM) CISSP Concentration: ISSEP Prep
  • (ISC)2 (TM) Systems Security Certified Practitioner

This site is not open to non-military personnel. Registration, however, is incredibly simple and quick. Even this old sailor was able to set up an account in less than 15 minutes. Again, all courses are offered free of charge.

There are of course, other government sponsored training and education benefits available to the Veteran community with the goal of qualifying you for a career in cyber-security. The Scholarship for Service (SFS) Program is designed to provide funds to recruit and train the next generation of cybersecurity professionals to meet our Country’s needs. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) partners with NSF and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to provide institutions with funding towards scholarships for cybersecurity-related degree programs at two- and four-year colleges and universities. More information on may be obtained at the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Careers and Studies NICCS website.

I may explore this further in future pieces but there are private sector entities which offer free cybersecurity training and education to veterans. SANS which stands for SysAdmin, Audit, Network and Security offers excellent cybersecurity training as well as employer outreach. There is also CISCO’s program: CyberVetsUSA. Of note, in addition to Active, Reserve and National Guard this program is offered to military spouses as well.

The need to train qualified personnel to fill the ever growing demand for cyber-security professionals is clearly recognized by both the private and public sectors. Further, there is a natural fit for Veterans, with their natural familiarity with security and protocol, to fill these roles.