Virginia Tech launches U.S. Cyber Range to support cybersecurity education nationwide

A Commonwealth of Virginia initiative is now expanding to meet the demand for cybersecurity education across the country. The Virginia Cyber Range will offer its cybersecurity education services to educators, industry, and others, through a new offering named the U.S. Cyber Range of Virginia Tech.

The U.S. Cyber Range will provide a cost-effective service for schools and businesses that are looking to provide cybersecurity education and training. Built primarily with academic users in mind, the U.S. Cyber Range supports courseware and hands-on environments for cybersecurity students. Small businesses and others are also welcome to take advantage of the cyber range for information security staff training and certification preparation.

Virginia Tech worked early on with Amazon Web Services to develop their completely cloud-based cyber range infrastructure. “The public cloud has allowed the Virginia Cyber Range, and now the U.S. Cyber Range, to quickly and cost-effectively scale to meet the rapid growth in demand for its services,” said Scott Midkiff, vice president for information technology and chief information officer for Virginia Tech. “AWS has been a great partner in providing critical technical support, allowing us to build a cyber range in the public cloud.”

The Virginia Cyber Range was created in July 2016 with the mission to provide resources for cybersecurity education to public high schools and colleges across the state in an effort to jumpstart the pipeline of qualified cybersecurity experts needed to fill tens of thousands of jobs in Virginia. Since then, the range has grown to support 5,000 students and faculty at over 200 high schools, community colleges, and universities in Virginia.