The U.S. Department of Defense recently opened a fifth domain for war, after land, air, sea, and space: cyberspace.  President Barack Obama even appointed a Microsoft security
specialist, Howard Schmidt, to be his cyber-security czar and gave the
Pentagon the power to attack other countries’ computers, if necessary.

Locally, students and faculty at Cal Poly Pomona and Mt. San Antonio
College are responding to the commander-in-chief’s call and are ready to
enlist in Obama’s cyber army. In addition to learning how to combat
cyber-terrorists, students are also being trained to jump into one of
the few growing job markets of today – the field of information
assurance.

These two schools, along with Cal State Dominguez Hills, Cal State
San Bernardino and Whatcom Community College in Washington, will share a
$3 million grant awarded by the National Science Foundation last month.
The grant will fund computers and other supplies to help the schools
build cyber security curricula and outreach programs aimed at attracting
high school and college students to careers in cyber security.

Mt. SAC was chosen as the nexus of a new cyber-security center
expected to be up and running on the Walnut campus in six months. The
center, which will be the first of its kind on the West Coast, will be
host to cyber security events, programs and teacher training, officials
said.

Read more in Steve Scauzillo’s story Cyber.