{"id":73898,"date":"2025-12-04T18:30:38","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T23:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/?p=73898"},"modified":"2025-12-04T18:30:41","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T23:30:41","slug":"new-jersey-cyber-corps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-jersey-cyber-corps\/","title":{"rendered":"New Jersey opens recruitment for volunteer cyber corps"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After many years of wanting a volunteer corps of cybersecurity experts, New Jersey state officials on Wednesday announced they\u2019ve finally begun recruiting for one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael Geraghty, who\u2019s been serving as New Jersey\u2019s chief information security officer since 2017, said that soon after he started the job that year, he registered a domain name (a .org), in hopes of creating the state cyber corps \u2014 \u201cI realized that we needed help, as far as helping others with cybersecurity.\u201d It wasn\u2019t until this year that the corps, and its website, managed to materialize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Jersey\u2019s cyber corps will in its first year be grown to a \u201cmanageable\u201d size, Geraghty said, and run out of the New Jersey Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Cell, where he serves as director. He said it may eventually grow, but that organizers first want to \u201cmake sure we can get this right, because we don\u2019t want to overpromise and underdeliver. That\u2019s things we do poorly in government everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The corps<\/a>, officially titled the New Jersey Civilian Cyber Resilience Corps, will run under the authority of a domestic security task force in the state\u2019s Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness. The corps\u2019 unpaid volunteers, a press release says, \u201cmay be deployed to assist organizations with preparedness, response, and recovery activities as needed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A handful of other states, including Ohio and Wisconsin, run their own volunteer cybersecurity corps, primarily to lend aid when responding to cyberattacks or other urgent incidents requiring specialized expertise. Michigan\u2019s MiCyberCorps<\/a> has, since its start in 2016, grown to more than 60 members. They were required to pass criminal background screenings and knowledge tests, and have at least two years\u2019 experience in information security. They conduct cybersecurity assessments and respond to IT emergencies at public agencies across the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While incident response is part of the New Jersey corps\u2019 mandate, Geraghty said he wants the emphasis to be on prevention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wanted to be a first-preventer, to do things before we have to respond,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we can make ourselves a harder target, that means less work for everybody. And as they say, it’s easier to keep Humpty Dumpty on the wall than to put him back together again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s rare to find a state where its chief executive and lawmakers haven\u2019t made cybersecurity a greater priority in recent years. Concepts like two-factor authentication and ransomware have long since emerged from obscurity in the public sector. But even before the backdrop of rising technological sophistication, New Jersey\u2019s state government enjoyed status as being security-minded. Geraghty said it might have something to do with New Jersey being the nation\u2019s most densely populated state, a highly digitally connected state or that it\u2019s a state housing so much critical infrastructure \u2014 from gas pipelines and railways to chemical plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like many state governments, New Jersey has in recent years begun deploying more resources to assist smaller governments and public-sector agencies within its borders, such as school districts, sheriff\u2019s offices and local governments. And, as in other states, New Jersey has pursued this effort, often called \u201cwhole of state\u201d cybersecurity, with the financial support of the federal government, drawing on programs like the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program<\/a> and the Homeland Security Grant Program. With New Jersey\u2019s density and high level of connectivity in mind, Geraghty said the corps is a chance to remediate even more of the state\u2019s sensitive cyber shortcomings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[The corps] was really to go after a true whole of state, rather than just say we’re whole of state and we only do government things<\/em>,\u201d he said, \u201cWe want to work with those community organizations, food pantries, local health clinics, so that we can provide them cybersecurity services, as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Jersey may be advancing cautiously, but having delayed the project for so many years, Geraghty\u2019s ambitions for the corps might also be fueled by a sense of lost time, and of its potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs we do something good for one organization,\u201d he said, \u201cword of mouth will expand the demand.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New Jersey Civilian Cyber Resilience Corps will start small, organizers said, and emphasize prevention over response.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":205,"featured_media":73899,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"disable_grayscale_images":true,"grayscale_contrast":0,"sponsored_content":false,"display_author_bio":true,"story_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[20646],"tags":[65,3973,9485,12178,13110,16536,25131,26041,26042],"people":[],"special-report":[],"authors":[4696],"class_list":["post-73898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-new-jersey","tag-state-government","tag-michael-geraghty","tag-ciso","tag-government-technology","tag-cybersecurity","tag-technology-news","tag-new-jersey-civilian-cyber-resilience-corps","tag-cyber-corps","author-colin-wood"],"yoast_head":"\nNew Jersey opens recruitment for volunteer cyber corps | StateScoop<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The New Jersey Civilian Cyber Resilience Corps will start small, organizers said, and emphasize prevention over response.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-jersey-cyber-corps\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New Jersey opens recruitment for volunteer cyber corps | StateScoop\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The New Jersey Civilian Cyber Resilience Corps will start small, organizers said, and emphasize prevention over response.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-jersey-cyber-corps\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"StateScoop\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/StateScoop\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-12-04T23:30:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-12-04T23:30:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/12\/GettyImages-1239031926.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1300\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"867\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Colin Wood\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@State_Scoop\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@State_Scoop\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-jersey-cyber-corps\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-jersey-cyber-corps\/\",\"name\":\"New Jersey opens recruitment for volunteer cyber corps | StateScoop\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-jersey-cyber-corps\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-jersey-cyber-corps\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/12\/GettyImages-1239031926.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-12-04T23:30:38+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-12-04T23:30:41+00:00\",\"description\":\"The New Jersey Civilian Cyber Resilience Corps will start small, organizers said, and emphasize prevention over response.\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-jersey-cyber-corps\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-jersey-cyber-corps\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/12\/GettyImages-1239031926.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/12\/GettyImages-1239031926.jpg\",\"width\":1300,\"height\":867,\"caption\":\"Phillips 66 oil refinery operates in Linden, New Jersey, on March 8, 2022. 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