The MassCyberCenter has launched programs establishing a Security Operations Center (SOC) and Cyber Range facilities at colleges and universities statewide to grow the cybersecurity talent pipeline, as well as help provide solutions to municipalities, small businesses and nonprofits for protection against cyber threats.
These programs were recently featured on CBS Eye on Cyber. Check out the video below.
CyberTrust Massachusetts is a nonprofit organization working closely with the MassCyberCenter and is currently supported with grant funding to support the operation of a SOC and Cyber Range facilities. Visit CyberTrust Massachusetts.
Security Operations Center
CyberTrust Massachusetts manages a SOC serving municipalities, small businesses and nonprofits in Massachusetts. SOC services include:
One-time service that includes:
- Assessing infrastructure, security controls, policies and practices
- Assisting in developing a minimum set of cyber policies and plans, including an incident response plan
- Connections to free resources made available from state or federal programs
- Testing four key aspects of defenses
- Can be applied broadly across all assets, or selectively across high-value assets and users
- Containment of unauthorized software and programs
- Control over which applications can run on your systems, using the ThreatLocker technology stack
- Reduced attack surface and lateral movement opportunities
- Automated detection and alerting, with analyst review and escalation to your team on high-confidence incidents
- Correlates activity across sources to detect additional threats, such as phishing-related compromise, account takeover and lateral movement
- Extends existing SentinelOne EDR with cross-source detection across identity, email and firewall - no new platform required
- Monitors a defined set of critical integrated log sources, including Active Directory, Entra ID, email security and firewall; additional integrations available as needs grow
- Supports cyber insurance requirements, compliance reviews and incident investigations through consolidated activity records across monitored systems
- Active Threat Hunting: based on cyber threat intelligence, malicious actor tactics, and known bad resources, identifies new and unique threats
- Application and Asset Inventory: visibility into infrastructure, to include endpoints, servers and software
- Managed Endpoint Detection and Response (using a SentinelOne technology stack): 24/7 monitoring of endpoints, threat insights, proactive notifications, consultations on handling threats and false positives and threat response
- Network Discovery: visibility of all devices connected to a network and scanning to identify and manage connected devices
- Vulnerability Management: a dashboard showing applications aggregated by version with several ways to filter application and vulnerability information
Services are enabled via technology partners with a world-class technology stack and staffed with a combination of cyber experts and students selected from CyberTrust’s member schools. The SOC is located at Bridgewater State University, Springfield Technical Community College, Rapid7 and UMass Lowell.
UMass Lowell SOC
The MassCyberCenter provided UMass Lowell with a grant of $300,000 in October 2025 to establish a Security Operations Center as part of CyberTrust Massachusetts that will provide cybersecurity resiliency and compliance support for the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) supply chain.
The MassCyberCenter held a webinar on December 12 that contained an overview of this SOC and the services it will provide for DIB supply chain companies.
Cyber Resilient Massachusetts Grant Program
The MassCyberCenter is providing grants under the Cyber Resilient Massachusetts Grant Program to municipalities, small businesses and nonprofits in Massachusetts to fund Security Operations Center services, including Managed Detection and Response (MDR) and related services, from CyberTrust Massachusetts. Grants may fund up to one-third of the cost of the services provided by CyberTrust Massachusetts plus an onboarding fee (if applicable).
View this video highlighting the Cyber Resilient MA Grant Program, recently advertised on NBC Sports.
Cyber Ranges in Massachusetts
The MassCyberCenter has provided grants to support the establishment and operation of Cyber Range facilities at Bridgewater State University, Mass Bay Community College, Salem State University and Springfield Technical Community College.
These facilities provide interactive cybersecurity training opportunities for organizations in Massachusetts:
Over 2,300 labs broken up into topics, career paths, threat actors, CVEs, etc.
Gamified table-top scenarios for executive audiences
End-to-end attack scenarios (offensive and defensive) to exercise team synergy and technical acumen
Current Massachusetts Cyber Ranges
