Ukiah, CA – Mendocino College, a community college in northern California, today announced its partnership with Cyberbit, the world’s leading cybersecurity skill development platform, to launch its cybersecurity program. Mendocino College (MC) will use the Cyberbit platform and its state-of-the-art cyber range for its cyber defense courses, ensuring its students gain the critical hands-on experience that cybersecurity leaders in every industry are seeking in new hires today.

The courses will be required learning for the degree and will include ethical hacking, network security, penetration testing, digital forensics, and more. The Cyberbit platform will help MC align with the Draft IT Cybersecurity Model Curriculum for California Community Colleges and by integrating its hyper-realistic cyber range, MC will be able to offer a unique hands-on program, unmatched by community colleges in the region.

Students will use Cyberbit’s advanced cyber range to gain hands-on experience in a hyper-realistic environment that replicates a security operations center (SOC), enterprise grade networks, leading security tools, and real-world cyber-attacks like the ones they will confront on the job. This will allow them to develop the cyber defense skills and experience so critical to cyber defense roles today.   The Spotlight modules, video and text-based learning modules that provide a foundation in cyber theory, will be used for or as supplements to lecture material. As students progress through the course, they will be able to earn cybersecurity certificates from Mendocino College. Certificates and degrees offered by Mendocino College starting 2024 include the following: Cybersecurity Associate of Science, Digital Forensics Certificate of Achievement, Network Defense Certificate of Achievement, and Penetration Test Professional Certificate of Achievement

“Cyber ranges are one of the most effective and innovative ways to develop cybersecurity skills,” said David Pai, Professor Computer Science, Mendocino Community College. “By partnering with Cyberbit, we are giving our students the opportunity to build and hone their incident response skills in real-world cyber-attack scenarios that mirror the challenges they will face in the real world. This will position them as next-gen cybersecurity professionals, workforce ready for their careers as cybersecurity experts.”

“We wanted to provide our cybersecurity students with a leg up in the industry when they graduate and giving them hands-on experience practicing on a cyber range meets that objective “said Christy Smith, Dean of Career Education, Mendocino Community College. “We believe that Cyberbit helps us achieve our primary objective of producing elite, workforce-ready cybersecurity graduates of the future. In addition, using the Cyberbit platform has the added benefits of raising awareness about our cybersecurity program, which can boost enrollment, retention, and completion rates – key criteria for the performance-based funding model used by California Community Colleges. In the future, Mendocino College hopes other California-based community colleges will join us in using our cyber range and sharing resources to power their cyber skill development programs.”

“We are thrilled to be supporting Mendocino College’s goal of helping it develop the next generation of cybersecurity professionals,” said Susan Green, Senior National Director at Cyberbit. By providing the platform for its cyber range, we can help Mendocino College create a top-notch cybersecurity degree program that prepares students for the ever-evolving challenges of the modern cybersecurity landscape, readies them for their careers in cybersecurity, and helps close the cybersecurity skills gap.

About Mendocino College

Mendocino College partners with a dynamic community of diverse students to help them achieve their educational goals.  Informed by research, reflection, dialogue, equity, and anti-racist practices the College is committed to student success and achievement.  Mendocino College embraces its role as an intellectual, economic, and cultural anchor for the region. It takes pride in being a community college with outstanding academics and exceptional support programs, providing education opportunities at its Ukiah Campus, the Lake County, North County, and Coast Centers, as well as online, and in partnership with many local school districts. Mendocino College’s purpose is to provide its students with a world-class education so they can achieve their dreams. Our faculty, staff, and administrators are committed to providing supportive and empowering experiences inside and out of the classroom that allow students to see their own highest potential as learners and global citizens.

About Cyberbit

Cyberbit provides hands-on cybersecurity education and training and addresses the global cybersecurity skill gap through its world-leading cyber range platform. Colleges and universities use Cyberbit Range to increase student enrollment and retention, train industry organizations, and position their institutions as regional cybersecurity hubs by providing simulation-based learning and training. The Cyberbit Range platform delivers a hyper-realistic experience that immerses learners in a virtual security operations center (SOC), where they use real-world security tools to respond to real-world, simulated cyberattacks. As a result, it prepares students for their careers in cybersecurity from day-one after graduation and reduces the need to learn on the job. Cyberbit delivers over 1000,000 training sessions annually across 5 continents. Customers include Fortune 500 companies, MSSPs, system integrators, higher education institutions and governments. Cyberbit is headquartered in the US, with offices in Europe, and Asia.  

Mendocino College Information: www.mendocino.edu/computer-science

Mendocino College Contact: Rose Bell, Director of Community Relations, rosebell@mendocino.edu

Cyberbit Contact: Susan Green, Senior National Director, susan.green@cyberbit.com