GULFPORT, Miss. (WLOX) — Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College and Mississippi State University held “Securing the Coast,” an event aimed at helping small businesses with defense contracts strengthen their cybersecurity practices.
The event comes as the Department of War pushes for increased security amid threats to critical defense contractors, many of which operate along the Gulf Coast.
Center of Cyber Education Director Shelly Hollis said small businesses often struggle with basic security measures.
“Even within social media, there are people always trying to get you to click on links and do things so that you then turn around and give them your private information. So that’s one of the biggest risks. And even small businesses see that a lot. Poor passwords- not having good, strong passwords is a big issue,” Hollis said.
Contracts held by these businesses include requirements to protect two types of data: federal contract information, which has low-level sensitivity, and controlled unclassified information, described as more extreme.
The Net Effect President Glenda Snodgrass explained why controlled unclassified information is more advanced to protect.
“It involves both cybersecurity and administrative, written policies and procedures, employee training, and employee background screening. There are a lot of aspects to protecting CUI that can be really quite daunting for a small business to tackle,” Snodgrass said.
The event included breakout sessions, speakers, and guidance from cybersecurity leaders with a focus on CMMC, or cybersecurity maturity model certification.
“It’s just a special set of cybersecurity controls that businesses have to meet to safely do business with the government,” Defense Cybersecurity Group CEO Vincent Scott said.
Scott said small machine shops and suppliers on the Gulf Coast carry significant responsibility.
“Some of the nation’s core shipbuilding capability is here on the coast. It’s all the small contractors and industry that feed into those shipyards that really build the economy of the Gulf Coast in a very significant way,” Scott said.
Student involvement
A grant from the Department of Energy supports cybersecurity programs at Mississippi State University and Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, exposing students to challenges faced by small businesses in the area.
“It allows us to take our student teams who are studying to be cybersecurity specialists and allows us to take those teams and go into small businesses and help them understand kind of where they are with a baseline cybersecurity assessment,” Hollis said.
Organizers said keeping local contractors cyber-secure protects the local economy and the nation’s defense.
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