The Ohio Cyber Range Institute (OCRI) at the University of Cincinnati will receive $6.5 million in capital budget funds from the State of Ohio, news outlets such as the Cincinnati Business Courier reported.
The OCRI is a statewide, collaborative network that supports cybersecurity programs across Ohio. The institute's goal is to advance an integrated approach to cybersecurity education, workforce and economic development in cyber-related fields throughout the state.
The funds will go toward refreshing the range's original hardware, purchase more advanced equipment and scale its capacity by about 20% to support more classes, training and exercises over the next two years.
"We are now living more and more in a digital world, so there is a base level of skills that everyone needs to learn … the security of the information online is what keeps us in this digital world," Rebekah Michael, the OCRI executive staff director and an associate professor educator in UC's School of Information Technology, told the Cincinnati Business Courier.
The OCRI, which is housed at UC Digital Futures, provides training to help organizations throughout Ohio prepare for and respond to cybersecurity incidents. Michael compared the cyber range to a virtual gun range but for cybersecurity.
"When you have a cybersecurity attack, when people have malware, it's hard to train on how to mitigate that and on how to protect against that because that stuff is just bad on your networks and computers, so you don't want that running around," she said.
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Featured image at top: Richard Harknett, co-director of the Ohio Cyber Range Institute, speaks to a guest during the grand opening of the Digital Futures building at UC in September 2022. Photo/Andrew Higley/UC Marketing + Brand
