Cybersecurity Center for Business

There has been a staggering increase in cybersecurity attacks, particularly against small and medium-sized businesses and organizations in rural America. Many small businesses cannot recover from such attacks – 50 percent will close within six months of an attack. There is also a cybersecurity workforce shortage with more than 6,000 open positions in Wisconsin alone.

Through the WiSys U.S. National Science Foundation’s Regional Innovation Engines (NSF Engines) grant, our goal in the pilot project, CyberFirst Coop, is to address these issues in rural Wisconsin’s small agricultural businesses with a focus on farmers. A team of UW-Whitewater faculty and staff and partners will employ a student-based cybersecurity team to provide a broad-based assessment of small, rural agricultural businesses (farms) information systems, including determination of their vulnerability to security breaches such as ransomware attacks. We will assess cyber-readiness of agricultural organizations and help learners and employees develop their cybersecurity skills to add new cybersecurity talent to the pipeline.

This grant is complete and is no longer accepting any new applications.

The Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) is supported by the Department of Defense (DoD) and represents a unified standard for implementing cybersecurity across the defense industrial base (DIB), which includes more than 300,000 companies in the supply chain. The Wisconsin Execution of Cybersecurity Understanding, Remediation, and Education for Defense (WISECURED) grant promoted CMMC best practices to mitigate compromises of sensitive defense information located on contractors' information systems.

The WISECURED program provided:

• Awareness
• Self-assessment of a firm’s cybersecurity level by identifying the gaps in security
• A plan for attaining the official CMMC

ITSCM 180: Introduction to Programming for Business Applications

Course Outcomes:

• Describe fundamentals of procedural and object-oriented programming
• Explain business programming concepts such as requirements and technical specifications
• Gather business requirements and develop programs that meet the requirements
• Use programs to manipulate files, handle execution errors, and manage data

ITSCM 221: Information Technology Infrastructure

Course Outcomes:

• Describe the standards of data communication that support corporate network infrastructure and the Cloud.
• Illustrate network diagrams for hardware and software inventory and asset management.
• Compare network technologies designed to solve business problems.
• Describe the key concepts of information security and how it relates to network infrastructure and the Cloud.

ITSCM 314: Database Design and Administration

Course Outcomes:

• Understand the database development process and the role of modeling in that process
• Compose SQL queries against a relational database
• Create and load a database using SQL and supporting tools
• Understand the concept of relational integrity and know how to apply it.

ITSCM 320: Business Analysis

Course Outcomes:

• Develop a business case for a proposed system
• Create business process models
• Perform data modeling for a computer application

ITSCM 385: Agile Project Management

Course Outcomes:

• Analyze business-oriented skills in a given project management environment
• Comprehend necessary project management tools and knowledge to solve business problems
• Apply theoretical concepts to effectively guide and motivate individuals
• Recognize how critical and creative thinking aids project management

ITSCM 451: Information Technology Service Management

Course Outcomes:

• Define IT Service Management processes, functions, and roles
• Select relevant information assurance processes to implement for an IT service, given the specific context
• Demonstrate the ability to integrate the knowledge, skills, abilities, and values learned in developing a business crisis response playbook