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In May of 2017, President Trump issued Executive Order 13800 for “Strengthening The Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure”. Call to Actions included:

• Effective immediately, each agency head shall use The NIST Cybersecurity Framework to manage the agency’s cybersecurity risk.

• Further, the United States seeks to support the growth and sustainment of a workforce that is skilled in cybersecurity and related fields as the foundation for achieving our objectives in cyberspace.

NISTCSF.COM is a NIST Cybersecurity Framework (NCSF) workforce development program brought to you by itSM Solutions LLC and UMass Lowell a NSA/DHS National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Research (CAE-R).

This innovative cybersecurity workforce development program is built around an NCSF Controls Factory™ model created by Larry Wilson, CISO in the university president’s office to engineer, operate and continually improve a NIST Cybersecurity Program across the university’s five campuses. Since its inception, the program has also been adopted by multiple universities and colleges in the New England area.

The NCSF Control Factory™ model helps enterprises organize the Engineering, Technical Operations and Business functions of an NCSF program. The model is completely adaptable, which means that each of the modules can easily be updated, replaced or modified with minimal impact on the overall solution. Organizations are free to choose the minimum set of controls its need to improve its cybersecurity risk profile and then over time adopt additional controls that will take it to a higher cybersecurity state. The factory approach allows for changes in the cybersecurity threat landscape, new vulnerabilities and the addition of improvements while still keeping a focus on the critical assets and identities.