St. Bonaventure University will receive $450,000 in federal funding to develop a Cyber Operations Center on campus.

U.S. Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY23) announced the funding at a brief press conference Wednesday afternoon at the William F. Walsh Science Center. The project is funded through the federal Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill.

“We’re grateful to Congressman Langworthy for his efforts in bringing this critical funding to St. Bonaventure and to the growing and critical field of cybersecurity,” said Dr. David Hilmey, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs. “This funding will not only benefit Bonaventure students in their education, it will give them hands-on experiences that will create a better, more capable cybersecurity workforce in Western New York, especially here in the Southern Tier.”

The Cyber Operations Center will strengthen the school’s partnerships with industry in a secure computing environment. The university would bring actual cyber-attack material into a configured, closed-network environment and use that material for hands-on learning regarding attack prevention and detection/response techniques.

“From the moment we wake up and check our smartphones to the time we go to bed and set our home security systems, we are constantly interacting with technology that is vulnerable to cyber threats. These threats can impact our banking, patient health care records, and supply chains – the list is never-ending,” Langworthy said. “It cannot be overstated how vital it is for institutions like St. Bonaventure University to lead the charge in preparing our future cybersecurity professionals.”

Public and private institutions will be able to utilize the Ops Center to test and practice their own incident response plans. The university also plans to offer workforce development, specialist training, and high school early education programming.

“The new Cyber Operations Center will be a great example of education, both in action and in practice, helping local and regional businesses and institutions better protect themselves,” Hilmey said.

Computer science and cybersecurity faculty, along with Technology Services staff members, will oversee the project.

The funding will be used for:

• Advanced cybersecurity display technology
• High-end computing workstations
• Cybersecurity instrumentation, correlation, and detection analytics hardware/software
• Secure cybersecurity computing environment to house all activity of the Cyber Operations Center within a specific location.
• Cybersecurity network infrastructure
• Cybersecurity forensic tools

______________

About the University: The nation’s first Franciscan university, St. Bonaventure University is a community committed to transforming the lives of our students inside and outside the classroom, inspiring in them a lifelong commitment to service and citizenship. Out of 167 regional universities in the North, St. Bonaventure was ranked #6 for value and #14 for innovation by U.S. News and World Report (2024).