Online Cyber Security Courses

[arajca]

The Department of Homeland Security has contracted out 10 online courses in Cyber Security. These are FREE to US citizens.

ACT Online Cyber Security Training

Definitely something CAP's IT folks should be looking at.

[Flying Pig]

That way someone wont be able hack into CAPTalk and change all of our screen names.

[MIKE]

'cept I don't need to hax noth'n to do that. 

[Thom]

Perhaps it is merely my paranoid nature, but I'm getting a tingle about these courses.

In 15 minutes of searching, I was unable to find a SINGLE link to Act-Online.com or the University of Memphis from a DHS or FEMA site.  All of the links I see that say that these courses are funded, approved, reviewed, etc. by FEMA or DHS are either from Act-Online.com, one of its sister commercial sites, or a collection of educational news blogs.  You would think that if the DHS or FEMA actually approved of these courses and wanted people to take them to be better prepared, there would be at least ONE link to the site from a .gov site.  Right?

Before I go inputting a huge amount of personally identifiable info into a website, particularly one that espouses good security practices, I'd like some independent corroboration of their relation to FEMA or DHS.

Am I way out of line here?

I'm just imagining that a great way to get info from people would be to setup a website that says it teaches Free Courses funded by your tax dollars, and approved by DHS or FEMA.  With the FEMA logo at the bottom of the page, who would question it?  Yet I could set this up without FEMA's knowledge with little trouble.

Thom

[a2capt]

...or any useful reference to "2006-GT-T6-K009".

Could be that it's lure-marketing to get you to pay for others later..

Anyone had a look at the course material yet?

[arajca]

Delving through FEMA's website (starting point: www.fema.gov), I worked my way to the Training Providers page. I found University of Memphis (University of Memphis (U of M), Center for Information Assurance (CfIA)). That link takes you to ACT Online.

I also sent an email to FEMA asking about the status of ACT Online.

[PhoenixRisen]

If anyone is familiar with the CyberPatriot Cyber Defense Competition (http://www.highschoolcdc.com), ACT-Online is one of the links they point to for training.  My squadron was supposed to have a team in the race, but couldn't get enough interest.