Maryland cyber security company offers free classes to furloughed workers

COLUMBIA, Md. (FOX 5 DC) - A cyber security company in Howard County is offering free classes to federal workers impacted by the government shutdown.

Phoenix TS in Columbia announced it was offering the classes for free to about 19 furloughed workers.

HERE TO HELP: Resources for workers impacted by the federal shutdown

"We thought, "what can we do?' And my staff had this amazing idea," Ben Tchoubineh, the president of Phoenix TS explained. "The class itself would cost about $2,400 for anyone who wanted to take this class. It's really great training for anyone who wants to get into cyber security and some of these people are sitting around, not getting paid and I thought, 'how could we support them?'"

The class teaches students how to deal with firewalls, how to design better networks to help secure organizations and how to make better decisions to protect a company's cyber security.

In the video player above, watch FOX 5's Bob Barnard interview Ben Tchoubineh about the program.