The U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has selected The MITRE Corporation to operate the first federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) solely dedicated to enhancing cybersecurity and protecting national information systems. MITRE will partner with the University System of Maryland (USM) to support the center.
The new FFRDC will support the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE), which NIST, the state of Maryland, and Montgomery County, Md., established in 2012 to help businesses secure their data and digital infrastructure by bringing together information security experts from industry, government and academia. MITRE will further the NCCoE’s goal to foster public-private collaborations to identify and solve today’s most pressing cybersecurity challenges. Working with the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), two leading research institutions within the USM, MITRE will carry out the goals of the new FFRDC in research, development, engineering and technical support as well as operations and facilities planning.