Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering

UMBC's Training Centers is offering a new Certificate in Cyber Operations that is designed to help move participants from a basic competence with computers and technology up to the level of a competent, entry-level professional as a Cyber Analyst or Operator.

Homer Minnick, the Training Centers' director for Cybersecurity training, will host a free webinar on the certificate program from 12:00-1:00pm on Wednesday March 27, 2013. It will include the following topics.

• What is the Cybersecurity Academy?
• Is the Certificate in Cyber Operations right for me?
• How does the Certificate in Cyber Operations contrast with other certifications from UMBC Training Centers?”
• What are the education and experience eligibility requirements?
• Which industry certifications are included in this program?
• What is the value this certification brings to my organization?
• How do you apply for the program?
• What is the next step? Where do I get more information?

  If you are interested in participating, please register online for the free webinar.

Privacy and Security in Online Social Media (PSOSM)

Ponnurangam Kumaraguru ("PK")
Assistant Professor
Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi, India

10:30-12:00 Monday, March 11, 2013, ITE 325b, UMBC

With increase in usage of the Internet, there has been an exponential increase in the use of online social media on the Internet. Websites like Facebook, Google+, YouTube, Orkut, Twitter and Flickr have changed the way Internet is being used. There is a dire need to investigate, study and characterize privacy and security on online social media from various perspectives (computational, cultural, psychological). Real world scalable systems need to be built to detect and defend security and privacy issues on online social media. This talk will give you a preview of what we do at PreCog in the area of PSOSM. I will describe briefly some of the cool ongoing projects that we have: ChaMAILeon, PhishAri, Twit-Digest, U2P2, and OCEAN. Much of our research work is made available for public use through tools or online services. Our work derives techniques from Data Mining, Text Mining, Statistics, Network Science, Public Policy, Complex networks, Human Computer Interaction, and Psychology.

In this talk, I will focus on the following: (1) Twit-Digest is a tool to extract intelligence from Twitter which can be useful to security analysts. Pro-cursor to this work is published at PSOSM 2012, this work also obtained second best award at IBM ICARE 2012. (2) OCEAN: Open source Collation of eGovernment data and Networks. Here, we show how publicly available information on Government services can be used to profile citizens in India. This work obtained the Best Poster Award at Security and Privacy Symposium at IIT Kanpur, 2013. (3) Privacy in India: Attitudes and Awareness V 2.0 U2P2, this is one of the largest ever done privacy study in India. This has been in media recently; if you are interested search for #privacyindia12 on Twitter. This work obtained the third Best Poster Award at Security and Privacy Symposium at IIT Kanpur, 2013.

Ponnurangam Kumaraguru ("PK") Assistant Professor, is currently the Hemant Bharat Ram Faculty Research Fellow at the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Delhi, India. He received his Ph.D. from the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). His research interests include developing technological and inter-disciplinary solutions to detect and prevent computer crime, in particular, these days be has been dabbling with complex networked systems (e.g. social web systems like Twitter, Facebook, and telephone logs). He is also very passionate about issues related to human computer interaction. As Principal Investigator, PK is currently managing research projects value of about 2 Crores INR. PK is a Co-Principal Investigator in a project that is approved at the Europe Union FP7 which is about 5.3 million Euros. PK has received research funds Government of India, National Science Foundation, industry bodies in India, and International Development Research Centre. He is serving as a PC member in WWW 2013, AsiaCCS 2013 and he is also serving as a reviewer for International Journal of Information Security and ACM's Transactions on Internet Technology. PK’s Ph.D. thesis work on anti-phishing research at Carnegie Mellon University has contributed in creating a successful start-up company, Wombat Security Technologies. PK founded and manages PreCog, a research group at IIIT-Delhi. PK can be reached at .

UMBC Training Centers has launched the Cyber Academy to address the tremendous need for Cyber professionals in the workforce.  The Cyber Academy is a full time, intensive training program designed to prepare students for immediate employment in Cybersecurity job specialties within government and industry. The Cyber Academy – Certificate in Computer Network Operations will develop civilians and military personnel from a basic competence with computers and technology up to the level of a competent, entry-level professional as a Cyber Analyst or Operator. This program is closely aligned with the recent National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) release of the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) framework. Applications for the Cyber Academy – Certificate in Computer Network Operations program will be accepted in mid-February. If you are interested in being notified when the official application process opens up, please click here.

Program Details

The Cyber Academy – Certificate in Computer Network Operations will prepare students for a role within an organization in cybersecurity defense, vulnerability assessment or penetration testing. Topics covered include the following.

• Hardware and Computer Architecture
• Networking
• Network Security Fundamentals
• Basic Programming and Scripting
• Windows Operating System Fundamentals and Administration
• Linux Operating System Fundamentals and Administration
• Basic Network Attack Methodology
• Malware Analysis

Professional Certifications

The Cyber Academy – Certificate in Computer Network Operations enables program participants to earn the following professional industry certifications.

• CompTIA Network+
• CompTia Security+
• Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA)
• EC Council Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)

These certifications illustrate to employers your professional achievements and your dedication to ongoing professional development. Additionally, there are many roles in the government and with government contractors that require these certifications, such as those required by DoD Directive 8570.

Selection into the Cyber Academy will be based on the following components.

• “Whole person” approach
• Aptitude assessment
• Tiered knowledge assessments
• Security screening (National Agency Check)
• Prior educational and work history
• Passion and initiative

Program Logistics

The Cyber Academy – Certificate in Computer Network Operations is a four month full time program which will begin in June and run through September, 2013. Classes will be held every weekday from 8:30 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. at 6996 Columbia Gateway Drive, Columbia, MD 21046. For the inaugural open enrollment Cyber Academy – Certificate in Computer Network Operations cohort, the cost will be $14,995.00 per student. Students have the option of paying for this outright or can participate in a tuition deferral program which is described below. Under the tuition deferral program, $4,995.00 is paid at the beginning of the program. Within 12 months of completing the program, when a student obtains employment as an IT or cyber professional, the outstanding balance is due for their training. This can be paid for by their employer or by the student.

Audience

This program has two core audiences:

• Current employees of organizations who require additional hands-on training to meet existing cyber workforce gaps. These employees can have little IT background and be taken through the entire program, or can come with basic foundational skills and moved directly into training for a specific specialty area.
• Individuals seeking to enter the fields of information technology and cybersecurity who are interested in employment with government agencies, government contractors and commercial enterprises in the region. While cyber is the primary focus, this program provides excellent preparation for work in any commercial or civilian IT organization.

The nation's demand for skilled cybersecurity professionals continues to rise. The UMBC Cybersecurity Graduate Program will hold an information session from 6:00pm to 7:30pm on Thursday 21 March in room 102 of the Information Technology and Engineering Building (ITE). Participants will learn how our masters and certificate programs can help you get started or advance in this thriving industry, meet the Graduate Program Director and learn more about our program’s curriculum and flexible class schedules. We are now accepting applications for Fall 2013 with a deadline of 1 August, 2013. RSVP for the Cybersecurity information session online to reserve a seat.

UMBC is certified as a Center for Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education (CAE) as well as a Center of Academic Excellence in Research (CAE-R) sponsored by the National Security Agency and Department of Homeland Security (DHS). View or download our fact sheet for a summary of the cybersecurity programs.

CSEE professor Anupam Joshi–director of the new UMBC Center for Cybersecurity–has been invited to give a keynote talk at the Security & Privacy Symposium. The symposium will take place at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur India from February 28 to March 1. His talk is entitled “A Semantically Rich approach to Cybersecurity”.

The objective of the symposium is to bring together students, faculty, and researchers from across India to discuss the growing field of security and privacy. Dr. Joshi joins a dozen fellow scholars who will discuss topics including emerging security and privacy challenges and privacy and security in online social media.

Dr. Joshi is an Oros Family Professor of Technology. He has been a Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering (CSEE) at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) for more than a decade, teaching courses in Mobile Computing, Security, Social Media, and Operating Systems at the graduate and undergraduate levels.

His own research interests deal with Intelligent Networked Systems, with a focus on Mobile Computing. He has recently received a grant from NSF’s Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program, a three year project to investigate how to better manage security and privacy constraints while querying semantically annotated linked data sources. The project, Policy Compliant Integration of Linked Data, is a collaboration with researchers at M.I.T. and the University of Texas at Dallas.

Help shape the future of warfare through cyber operations. It’s what we do in the Asymmetric Operations Department at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)—a national leader in scientific research and development, located midway between Baltimore and Washington, DC.

The Asymmetric Operations Department supports the U.S. government by applying research capabilities to high-priority problems in cybersecurity, special operations, and homeland protection. Our department has many full-time opportunities available and will be holding a career fair on Wednesday, March 6, 2013, 3:30–8pm

We're seeking individuals with skills and interest in the following areas: Big Data Analytics, Cloud Computing, Communication Systems Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Security, Digital Forensics, Embedded Software Engineering, Identification, Tagging, Tracking, and Location Systems, Information Assurance, Mobile OS and Application Development, Modeling and Simulation, Network Architecture, Network Vulnerabilities and Exploits, Real-Time Software Engineering, Reverse Engineering, Secure Platform Architecture, Sensor Technologies, Situational Awareness and Analysis (Cyber, Global, Bio), Software and System Architecture (Component, Platform, Enterprise), Systems Engineering, Systems Testing and Evaluation, Web Software Development, Wireless Network Engineering and Wireless Security.

Meet our hiring managers at our career fair and find out how your technical experience can help develop the next advances in cyber systems or technologies for special applications.

All positions require a minimum of a bachelor’s degree and the ability to obtain a security clearance. U.S. citizenship is required to obtain a clearance. Preregistration is strongly encouraged. This allows hiring managers to review your resume in advance of the career fair and may result in a preliminary interview on the day of the fair.

The Department of Homeland Security recently established the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Careers and Studies (NICCS) website. It includes information for government, industry, academia, and the general public to learn about cybersecurity awareness, education, careers, and workforce development opportunities. This is an especially useful site for students interested in focusing on cybersecurity as well as anyone who wants to explore possible career and training options involving cybersecurity. The vision of NICCS is to build a national resource to elevate cybersecurity awareness and affect a change in the American public to adopt a culture of cyberspace security and to build a competent cybersecurity workforce.

The week the PBS-distributed Nightly Business Report aired a story on international cyber espionage that featured UMBC's Richard Forno, Associate director of the UMBC Center for Cybersecurity. The piece, Washington Trade-Secret Theft Enforcement Weighs on Shareholders, discussed how cyber attacks are being used by foreign companies with the help of their governments to steal trade secrets from US businesses.

Dr. Forno was also interviewed on Tuesday on the PRI's The World radio news show about the Mandiant report that traces a wave of cyber attacks on American targets to a Chinese military unit in Shanghai. Forno's interview segment starts at minute 7:30, after the introduction.

Make friends and talk code!  The UMBC Council of Computing Majors will hold its first meeting of the year at 3:00pm on Wednesday, February 20 in ITE 210 on Main Street in the Commons.  CCM is an undergraduate student organization dedicated to promoting the fields of computer science and computer engineering. All majors are welcome!  Come if you are interested in joining or just finding out more about the CCM.

For more information send email to .

The Spring 2013 UMBC CSEE Newsletter is available and features articles on the new UMBC Center for Cybersecurity, a project to create a new student laptop lab for interactive and team learning, new faculty profiles, the Cyber Scholars program, a new course on applied networks security, and more.

See other issues of the CSEE Newsletter in the UMBC CSEE newsletter archive.