Cybercrimes can doom a small business. A new Metro State effort in St. Paul hopes to help.

When large corporations are hit by data breaches and other cybercrimes, reserves and insurance soften the blow. However, a single cyberattack can cause a small business to go out of business.

A new cyber clinic coming this fall to St. Paul — connected to Metropolitan State University and funded with $1.6 million in federal money — will provide free intelligence and monitoring services to those smaller firms.

During the past year and a half, more than 300 organizations in Minnesota — mostly businesses — were victims of extortion, computer invasion and forgery, among other cyber offenses, according to the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.

From 809 E. 7th St., students studying cyber defense and computer science will acquire hands-on experience providing technical services to neighborhood businesses, schools, community organizations and local government departments.

Neighborhood Development Center, a St. Paul nonprofit community development financial institution leading the remodeling of the 7th Street building to make it a cyber hub, will provide training and business formation support to students who choose to start a cyber services company, which will incubate within the clinic.

U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., secured the funds in 2023 to help Metro State and the NDC develop the Cyber Entrepreneurship Center and Security Operations Center. The funding partly covers paid internship opportunities for up to 20 students each semester, plus operating costs.

The idea for the center originated at meeting of university and NDC representatives coordinated by McCollum. Long-term, the goal is to create a revenue-generating, high-tech industry around the center with ancillary jobs and businesses for cyber defense, data center operation and internet service.

"Every day, cyberattacks threaten not only our government, but also our community businesses, academic and health care institutions, energy systems, and other critical infrastructure," McCollum said. "This cyber clinic is a model for empowering community members and developing the tools and skills to strengthen cybersecurity."

At the center, students will be paired with leaders of K-12 schools and nonprofits, directors of government departments and small business owners. They will then perform analysis of different computer systems. If a threat is detected, they will offer tools to solve it as well as monitoring services, said Faisal Kaleem, a professor at Metro State's department of computer science and cybersecurity and director of the school's cyber operations program.

The students will have bandwidth to serve 50 entities per year. For students that launch businesses, it lays the foundation of potential customer-client relationships, Kaleem said.

"This makes students qualified upon graduation, and helps them immediately build up their business on their own," he said.

Renay Dossman, NDC's chief executive, and Ben Johnson, NDC's senior director of real estate, said the nonprofit will provide the students-turned-entrepreneurs with marketing, branding and business plan coaching, and as a community development financial institution, or CDFI, financing for business formation.

At a high level, the center helps retain tech talent that attracts investors interested in their new cyber defense companies, said Kyle Swanson, dean of the college of sciences at Metro State. And by creating an internet defense pipeline through the center, Metro State is adding diverse professionals to the cyber field, Kaleem said. Most students in Metro State's cyber program are women and people of color, he said.

"This can help grow that by building a tech ecosystem around the defense economy," Swanson said.