Building the Cybersecurity Workforce: A SOC Lab Experience at CU–Bloomsburg Bloomsburg Posted Commonwealth University – Bloomsburg’s Security Operations Center (SOC) Lab gives students hands-on, real‑world cybersecurity operations experience. Commonwealth University – Bloomsburg Center for Digital Forensics and Cybersecurity, within the Department of Mathematics, Computer Science, and Digital Forensics, began providing Security Operations Center (SOC) lab experience to students. Under the supervision of Professor Dr. Atdhe Buja, the SOC lab has been built and operated since Fall 2025, where students simulate high-demand roles, such as SOC Analyst (Tiers 1, 2, 3), Incident Responder, and Threat Analyst. Students hands-on experience The team designed a networked SOC lab infrastructure inside the Ben Franklin building at Commonwealth University–Bloomsburg. Within this environment, undergraduate students gain practical experience detecting and responding to simulated cyber incidents using tools and workflows like those used in modern security operations centers. Students analyze alerts, investigate suspicious activity, and develop incident reports while performing tasks such as threat intelligence enrichment, event correlation, and endpoint forensic analysis. Through these exercises, students complete a full SOC workflow from detection → enrichment → correlation → investigation → reporting, allowing them to understand how cybersecurity teams monitor, analyze, and respond to threats in real operational environments. Vision The vision of the Security Operations Center (SOC) Lab at Commonwealth University – Bloomsburg is to become a regional hub for applied cybersecurity operations training, preparing the next generation of SOC analysts, incident responders, and digital forensics professionals. The initiative also aims to create a structured bridge between university cybersecurity education and industry workforce needs by preparing students for entry-level cybersecurity operations roles and facilitating engagement with cybersecurity organizations. Framework alignment The SOC lab infrastructure was designed in alignment with the Workforce Framework for Cybersecurity (NICE Framework) incident handling guidance described in NIST Special Publication 800-61 Revision 2.