(TNS) — For nine years, the University of Montana has had a cybersecurity certificate program at Missoula College. But last year, Missoula College teamed up with UM’s College of Business to launch a full cybersecurity degree program to better prepare students to fill the more than 700 cybersecurity jobs open in the state of Montana.

Victor Valgenti, who directs the Missoula College Information Technology (IT) program, has worked in cybersecurity since the early 2000s. He’s seen technology become more and more essential to both government and economy — and with that, cybersecurity has become more important, he said.

A lot of cybersecurity degree programs across the U.S. put a heavy focus on technical skills such as coding and networking, Valgenti said. UM takes a different approach. The partnership with the College of Business means cybersecurity students learn a lot about how businesses work and the principles of processes that businesses use to keep their systems secure, like who gets to access what and how employees are trained in cybersecurity. This leaves them more equipped to address security risks that go after people instead of computers, such as phishing scams.

“It’s really important that you understand how businesses work,” Shawn Clouse said.

Clouse is a professor of Management Information Systems at UM’s College of Business, and had a large role in starting this degree. He teaches many of the business courses that cybersecurity students take.

Clouse said there are two main reasons for which he sees students enroll in the program: money and jobs. There are 700 to 1,000 open cybersecurity jobs in the state of Montana, and even more nationwide, according to UM. Salary.com estimates the average salary for an entry level cybersecurity analyst at over $100,000.

According to Clouse, the most coveted job is that of a penetration tester, more commonly known as an ethical hacker. Penetration testers try to hack a client’s system, not to grab secrets or money, but to find out where vulnerabilities are. But the program isn’t just for programmers.

“Security focuses a lot on broken processes,” cybersecurity student Pheng Vang said. “All your technology doesn’t really matter if I can log in as someone.”

Vang works to support the Hellgate Computing Cluster, a supercomputer made of a bunch of connected devices that researchers all across UM can use. He said he applied a lot of his knowledge gained through the cybersecurity degree to that work.

Vang also mentors middle schoolers at Missoula College’s cybersecurity summer camp. He said that it takes a bit to get kids into programming, but they get interested once they find out they can hack into computers.

“It motivates them to start creating chaos,” Vang said.

Because of the existing cybersecurity certificate, some students already have some of the prerequisite classes for the degree. Cybersecurity student Jace Reddick is already a senior in the program, thanks to having credits from Missoula College’s IT program. That meant he needed to take courses this year that weren’t fully built yet.

“There had to be a lot of accommodations,” Reddick said, but he was overall satisfied with how the program handled those accommodations.

Another challenge is that the tech world is constantly changing. It’s hard to add a new class, Clouse said, so instead the program responds to changes in technology by changing the curriculum they do have. Valgenti said that while technology may change over time, the processes necessary to keep that technology secure often stay the same.

One brand new offering in the program is a class that takes place at the newly built Security Operations Center. This war-room-esque classroom allows students to use walls full of monitors to test out what it’s like to be at the center of an organization’s cybersecurity team by looking through data for suspicious activities.

The Security Operations Center is managed by Reddick.

“I’m a big organizational person,” Reddick said.

To him, cybersecurity is like a football game. The hackers play offense, trying to break through a defensive line. He enjoys making sure his organization is in the best possible form it can be to hold the line.

Reddick says that one advantage of having a business-focused program is translation: students can communicate with both the business and technical sides of an organization.

“I think it’s gonna be a great program,” Reddick said. “Definitely a great program so far.”

Andy Tallman is the education reporter for the Missoulian.

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