NYCHA IT Colleagues Among Latest Graduates of NYC Cyber Academy  

On March 5, the New York City Cyber Academy celebrated the newest graduates of a specialized training program designed to bolster the city’s cybersecurity workforce and improve efforts to defend agencies against web-based threats to critical services and infrastructure.  

City officials, including Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Matthew Fraser and Chief Information Security Officer Kelly Moan, gathered at 1 MetroTech Center in Brooklyn to recognize the latest group of 25 City employees to complete the NYC Cyber Academy program. Joining their fellow graduates from 22 agencies across the city were NYCHA employees Stoyan Stoyanov and Juan Estrella, who have both worked as Cybersecurity Analysts in the IT Department’s Technology Planning and Risk Management division for more than a year. Since 2022, the academy program has graduated 75 employees from 61 City agencies.  

The graduates will represent their respective agencies as liaisons to the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation’s (OTI) Cyber Command, which leads citywide cyber defense efforts and sets information security standards and policies for the city.   

“As cyber threats continue to pose real-world dangers, New York City remains committed to staying current and expanding the skills, knowledge, and coordination of its cyber professionals throughout City government to ensure the resilience of the critical services that New Yorkers depend upon,” CTO Fraser said. “Today’s Cyber Academy graduates play a front-line role in our continuous efforts to keep our city, and its government, safe from constant online threats.” 

Lauding the Authority’s participation in the Cyber Academy, NYCHA Chief Executive Officer Lisa Bova-Hiatt said, “Cybersecurity is of the utmost importance at NYCHA.”  

“We’re proud of our two team members who recently completed the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation’s Cyber Academy,” Ms. Bova-Hiatt said. “Their new skills will help keep NYCHA residents’ and employees’ information safe, while strengthening the Authority’s overall cybersecurity. This partnership with the Cyber Academy is exactly the kind of investment in our people that makes NYCHA and New York City stronger.” 

Upon receiving their class certificates, Mr. Stoyanov and Mr. Estrella spoke highly of the training and were proud to represent NYCHA at the Cyber Academy.  

“I thought it was a great program,” Mr. Stoyanov said. “I think we learned a lot and became way better analysts after we finished the program.” 

Mr. Estrella added: “I’m excited; it was a fun experience. You get to make connections with other people who are in your field and you get advice from experts, so it’s a sweet deal.” 

The instructor-led training, which is run by Cyber Command over five sessions, provides participants with cybersecurity best practices, focusing on incident response, network security and traffic analysis, and cyber threat intelligence.  

The NYCHA trainees said they were exposed to simulated “real-world” cyber attacks, which helped them expand their skills for spotting and defending against potential system threats, as well as identifying tactics used by cyber criminals such as malicious emails and phishing attacks.  

“I was instantly applying that knowledge and going through alerts a lot faster, knowing exactly what to look for,” Mr. Stoyanov noted. “Getting to experience real-world attacks and applying all the knowledge we learned in the classes was probably the best experience we could have had.”

Photo caption:  NYCHA Cybersecurity Analysts Juan Estrella (left) and Stoyan Stoyanov have both worked in the IT Department’s Technology Planning and Risk Management division for more than a year.