Meet Troy Suesse ’92, computer science. Troy was born the day that man first set foot on the moon’s surface—July 20, 1969—one small step for man, and one giant glimpse into Troy’s future. His parents gave him the middle name Armstrong to commemorate the occasion, in honor of Neal Armstrong, the first man who walked on the moon that day. Thus, Troy’s obsession with space began.In 2022, Troy published his debut novel, Maximum Capacity, a hybrid science fiction/dystopian story set 1,000 years into the future, where Earth becomes dreadfully overcrowded and its resources depleted. Take it away, Troy!

Q: What initially brought you to UMBC?

A: Fresh out of high school, it seems only a small subset of students have truly identified their life’s ambitions. That was the case with me. I lived close to UMBC, and I had friends and family who also attended the university. I found that UMBC hosted a vast array of majors to choose from, many in STEM, which was of particular interest to me. I dabbled in a few different courses of study until I found my ideal pathway—computer science. My degree has opened up wonderful opportunities in my career. 

In recent years, I’ve enjoyed watching UMBC’s sports programs grow. Perhaps most notably in 2018 when the 16-seeded men’s basketball team upset 1-seeded Virginia, the first time in NCAA men’s tournament history that has ever happened.

Q: What support does the UMBC community offer?

A: Make slow and steady progress toward your goals and dreams each day, but never isolate yourself from the resources that surround you. Most important of those resources—people. Connect with individuals who can help lift you to new heights, and accept the assistance of friends and mentors. I was able to find that at UMBC.

I’m thankful to the staff and faculty of UMBC for supporting me in my pursuit of a degree in computer science. But computers wouldn’t forever remain at the center of my life’s passion, as you will see shortly. I’ve always maintained a deep appreciation for planet Earth and all of its living things.

Left: Suesse, on the right, with Baltimore Orioles catcher Adley Rutschman. Right: Suesse with former NASA astronaut Terrence Wilcutt, who signed a copy of Maximum Capacity for the author.

Q: Who has inspired you?

A: All of the astronauts who have ever flown a ship have ignited my appreciation for our incredible planet. I was born the day that man first walked on the moon. Thus, my middle name is Armstrong, after the first man to walk on its surface. I’ve always been fascinated by the enormity and beauty of our galaxy and universe. So much so that I was compelled to write my first novel, Maximum Capacity.

Q: Can you tell us about your current job and your book?

A: I am a declassification officer in the Department of Defense (DoD)’s declassification services, where we enjoy the privilege of making gobs of fascinating historical information from the DOD archives available for public consumption.

In 2022, I published my first novel, Maximum Capacity. The story is set 1,000 years into the future, where Earth becomes dreadfully overcrowded and its resources depleted. Planet Earth has run out of room. There’s not enough food or resources to sustain the masses. So, for every baby born, another human must die. Those who do not contribute toward the common good and survival of the human race are considered expendable.

This adventure takes place in the vicinity of the Chesapeake Bay! 

Photo right: A Barnes & Noble book display after hosting a book signing event for Maximum Capacity.

* * * * *

UMBC’s greatest strength is its people. When people meet Retrievers and hear about the passion they bring, the relationships they create, the ways they support each other, and the commitment they have to inclusive excellence, they truly get a sense of our community. That’s what “Meet a Retriever” is all about.

Learn more about how UMBC can help you achieve your goals.

By Richard Forno, assistant director, UMBC Center for Cybersecurity, director, cybersecurity graduate program

The people of Baltimore are beginning their fifth week under an electronic siege that has prevented residents from obtaining building permits and business licenses – and even buying or selling homes. A year after hackers disrupted the city’s emergency services dispatch system, city workers throughout the city are unable to, among other things, use their government email accounts or conduct routine city business.

In this attack, a type of malicious software called ransomware has encrypted key files, rendering them unusable until the city pays the unknown attackers 13 bitcoin, or about US$76,280. But even if the city were to pay up, there is no guarantee that its files would all be recovered; many ransomware attacks end with the data lost, whether the ransom is paid or not.

Similar attacks in recent years have crippled the United Kingdom’s National Health Service, shipping giant Maersk and local, county and state governments across the U.S. and Canada. Map: The Conversation, CC-BY-ND Source: Recorded Future: Get the data

These types of attacks are becoming more frequent and gaining more media attention. Speaking as a career cybersecurity professional, the technical aspects of incidents like this are but one part of a much bigger picture. Every user of technology must consider not only threats and vulnerabilities, but also operational processes, potential points of failure and how they use technology on a daily basis. Thinking ahead, and taking protective steps, can help reduce the effects of cybersecurity incidents on both individuals and organizations.

Understanding cyberattack tools

Software designed to attack other computers is nothing new. Nations, private companies, individual researchers and criminals continue developing these types of programs, for a wide range of purposes, including digital warfare and intelligence gathering, as well as extortion by ransomware.

Many malware efforts begin as a normal and crucial function of cybersecurity: identifying software and hardware vulnerabilities that could be exploited by an attacker. Security researchers then work to close that vulnerability. By contrast, malware developers, criminal or otherwise, will figure out how to get through that opening undetected, to explore and potentially wreak havoc in a target’s systems.

Sometimes a single weakness is enough to give an intruder the access they want. But other times attackers will use multiple vulnerabilities in combination to infiltrate a system, take control, steal data and modify or delete information – while trying to hide any evidence of their activity from security programs and personnel. The challenge is so great that artificial intelligence and machine learning systems are now also being incorporated to help with cybersecurity activities.

There’s some question about the role the federal government may have played in this situation, because one of the hacking tools the attackers reportedly used in Baltimore was developed by the U.S. National Security Agency, which the NSA has denied. However, hacking tools stolen from the NSA in 2017 by the hacker group Shadow Brokers were used to launch similar attacks within months of those tools being posted on the internet. Certainly, those tools should never have been stolen from the NSA – and should have been better protected.

But my views are more complicated than that: As a citizen, I recognize the NSA’s mandate to research and develop advanced tools to protect the country and fulfill its national security mission. However, like many cybersecurity professionals, I remain conflicted: When the government discovers a new technology vulnerability but doesn’t tell the maker of the affected hardware or software until after it’s used to cause havoc or disclosed by a leak, everyone is at risk.

Chart: The Conversation, CC-BY-ND Source: CyberEdge Group Cyberthreat Defense Report 2019 Get the data

Baltimore’s situation

The estimated $18 million cost of recovery in Baltimore is money the city likely doesn’t have readily available. Recent research by some of my colleagues at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, shows that many state and local governments remain woefully underprepared and underfunded to adequately, let alone proactively, deal with cybersecurity’s many challenges.

It is concerning that the ransomware attack in Baltimore exploited a vulnerability that has been publicly known about – with an available fix – for over two years. NSA had developed an exploit (code-named EternalBlue) for this discovered security weakness but didn’t alert Microsoft about this critical security vulnerability until early 2017 – and only after the Shadow Brokers had stolen the NSA’s tool to attack it. Soon after, Microsoft issued a software security update to fix this key flaw in its Windows operating system.

Admittedly, it can be very complex to manage software updates for a large organization. But given the media coverage at the time about the unauthorized disclosure of many NSA hacking tools and the vulnerabilities they targeted, it’s unclear why Baltimore’s information technology staff didn’t ensure the city’s computers received that particular security update immediately. And while it’s not necessarily fair to blame the NSA for the Baltimore incident, it is entirely fair to say that the knowledge and techniques behind the tools of digital warfare are out in the world; we must learn to live with them and adapt accordingly.

Chart: The Conversation, CC-BY-ND Source: Recorded Future: Get the data

Compounding problems

In a global society where people, companies and governments are increasingly dependent on computers, digital weaknesses have the power to seriously disrupt or destroy everyday actions and functions.

Even trying to develop workarounds when a crisis hits can be challenging. Baltimore city employees who were blocked from using the city’s email system tried to set up free Gmail accounts to at least get some work done. But they were initially blocked by Google’s automated security systems, which identified them as potentially fraudulent.

Making matters worse, when Baltimore’s online services went down, parts of the city’s municipal phone system couldn’t handle the resulting increase in calls attempting to compensate. This underscores the need to not only focus on technology products themselves but also the policies, procedures and capabilities needed to ensure individuals and/or organizations can remain at least minimally functional when under duress, whether by cyberattack, technology failures or acts of nature.

Protecting yourself, and your livelihood

The first step to fighting a ransomware attack is to regularly back up your data – which also provides protection against hardware failures, theft and other problems. To deal with ransomware, though, it’s particularly important to keep a few versions of your backups over time – don’t just rewrite the same files on a backup drive over and over.

That’s because when you get hit, you’ll want to determine when you were infected and restore files from a backup made before that time. Otherwise, you’ll just be recovering infected data, and not actually fixing your problem. Yes, you might lose some data, but not everything – and presumably only your most recent work, which you’ll probably remember and recreate easily enough.

And of course, following some of cybersecurity’s best practices – even just the basics – can help prevent, or at least minimize, the possibility of ransomware crippling you or your organization. Doing things like running current antivirus software, keeping all software updated, using strong passwords and multifactor authentication, and not blindly trusting random devices or email attachments you encounter are just some of the steps everyone should take to be a good digital citizen.

It’s also worth making plans to work around potential failures that might befall your email provider, internet service provider and power company, not to mention the software we rely on. Whether they’re attacked or simply fail, their absence can disrupt your life.

In this way, ransomware incidents serve as an important reminder that cybersecurity is not just limited to protecting digital bits and bytes in cyberspace. Rather, it should force everyone to think broadly and holistically about their relationship with technology and the processes that govern its role and use in our lives. And, it should make people consider how they might function without parts of it at both work and home, because it’s a matter of when, not if, problems will occur.

******

Richard Forno, Senior Lecturer, Cybersecurity & Internet Researcher, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Header image: Many of Baltimore’s city services are crippled by a cyberattack.
The Conversation from City of Baltimore and Love Silhouette/Shutterstock.com, CC BY-SA

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

This spring, more than 350 students joined in this year’s annual HackUMBC, a 24-hour “tech innovation marathon” where participants were challenged to come up with creative solutions to specific challenges. The slogan: “Dream big. Make it happen.”

Students worked individually and on teams to build projects, or “hacks,” which were judged on technical complexity, elegance, and creativity during an expo at the conclusion of the event.

Contrary to popular belief, not all hacks require computer coding. “We call it an idea marathon,” explains Michael Bishoff ’16, computer science, a founder of HackUMBC. “It doesn’t have to be an app or a computer program.” In the past, participants have built tangible things like pop-up showers and coffee makers. Next year, HackUMBC would even like to incorporate a social good component, challenging students to come up with solutions to societal challenges.

“I’m trying to see where tech could come into play for disadvantaged groups,” says current HackUMBC co-president Celestine Wong, a rising senior studying computer science and social work. “I find a lot of joy in doing good for someone else.”

Wong’s dual major in social work and computer science has fueled her interest in finding real-world intersections between the fields, and she’s not alone. Many hackathons focus on how hacks can make the world a better place. As both Bishoff and Wong point out, these events can be great resume builders, but they’re even better when they create an opportunity to help the community.

The event has drawn interest and sponsorship support from a variety of leading tech companies and government agencies. Dan Hood ’01, computer science, is the chief technology officer for one of those companies, ClearEdge IT Solutions, which provides provides software engineering and data solutions and services. Hood says that for ClearEdge, getting involved with UMBC and the hackathon makes sense — it gives their company a chance to see some of the brightest upcoming students, and they get to help those students by providing learning opportunities and exposure to the career options that await them.

“I think it’s important to support the next generation of the workforce,” says Hood.

The National Security Agency (NSA), a top employer for UMBC alumni, provided “technical talks, mentors, and recruitment opportunities” for students during the event, says Kathy Hutson, NSA’s associate director for human resources.

“NSA and UMBC work closely together to help build the leaders of today and tomorrow to ensure that the Agency can protect and defend the country,” Hutson explained. “UMBC graduates have contributed greatly to our mission and we are proud of all we have accomplished together.”

Tenable Network Security, a firm that provides comprehensive security technology solutions, supports the Hackathon because it values UMBC’s educational initiatives, its students, and its cyber-focused extracurricular activities.

“The platform UMBC provided, which allowed companies to help students with hacking-related questions, was very useful in creating an innovative and collaborative atmosphere,” said Tenable Network Security’s spokesperson.

That innovative atmosphere goes a long way to helping students gain the valuable real-world experience they’ll need to land a job. In fact, those extracurriculars can help students stand out amongst a crowd of applicants.

“While classroom experience is fantastic, we encourage students to engage in personal projects that help them apply the skills learned within the curriculum,” says Tenable Network Security’s spokesperson. “These are qualities of very successful employees at Tenable and something we feel is important for students to realize early on.”

Hands-on experience is one of the chief benefits of HackUMBC, says Bishoff. “It’s like a 24-hour recruiting event,” he explains. “The students who come to these events are passionate about programming. They’re the kinds of people who want to work on weekends.”

Hood adds that the Hackathon gives students the chance to work in a team environment, navigate the stress of a time crunch, and be innovative. “To see [participants] go from nothing to concept to prototype in a day is pretty remarkable,” he says.

See more news coverage: http://technical.ly/baltimore/2016/03/07/5-innovative-projects-hackumbc/ AND https://umbc.edu/students-turn-ideas-into-inventions-at-hackumbc-tech-innovation-marathon/

Learn about Hack UMBC: https://hackumbc.org/

HackUMBC was sponsored by Tenable Network Security, ClearEdge IT Solutions, the NSA, McCormick, TowerSEC, Northrop Grumman, PayPal, T. Rowe Price, VentureStorm, Namecheap, Soylent, Google, and Square.

— Meredith Purvis

Our alumni have gone on to excel in many arenas, and we couldn’t be prouder of them. Today, take a look at a couple of computer science alumni who are helping to advance the increasingly vital field of cybersecurity. 

As team technical director for the NSA’s Laboratory for Telecommunication Sciences, Josiah Dykstra ’13, Ph.D. computer science, is always coming up with new ways to combat cyber threats,
including a Google Glass-like device that alerts analysts to new threats in real time. Read more about Dykstra and his work with NSA at Fedscoop.

Jamie Butler ’02, M.S. computer science, is now the chief technology officer of the Arlington, Va.-based cybersecurity firm Endgame. Butler’s cybersecurity career began at NSA, and he’s also worked for Mandiant and FireEye. Read more about Butler here.

Have your own news to share? Send in a class note!

The long Homecoming Weekend was kicked off in a big way on Thursday, October 9, with the annual Alumni Awards Ceremony.

This year, the ceremony was held in the stunning Performing Arts and Humanities Building Concert Hall, with receptions preceding and following the event in the Dance Tech Studio.

Those in attendance were treated to speeches by the honorees, as well as lots of smiles and laughter.

And of all of the quotes about the night, Director of Alumni Relations Stanyell Odom said it best: “This year’s winners are an outstanding representation of UMBC. All of the members of our community should be proud of their accomplishments and contributions to the campus and their respective professions.”

Congratulations, Alumni Awards winners of 2014!

Please enjoy a slideshow of pictures taken at the event by photographer Marlayna Demond ’11.

Over the next few weeks we’ll be introducing you to this year’s Alumni Award winners. The UMBC Alumni Association proudly honors distinguished alumni and faculty for their accomplishments and dedication to UMBC. Today we’re talking with Dr. Claudia Pearce ‘89, computer science, about her career working with the NSA as Senior Computer Science Authority.

Name: Dr. Claudia Pearce ’89 M.S., ’94 Ph.D., computer science
Job Title: Senior Computer Science Authority, NSA
Award Category: Engineering and Information Technology
Q: Why did you choose to attend UMBC?
I chose UMBC because of the quality of the computer science program and its central Maryland location. I am currently NSA Technology Directorate’s Senior Executive Academic Liaison (SEAL) for UMBC.
Q: Is there a particular class or professor at UMBC who really inspired you?
Dr. Charles Nicholas, professor of computer science, was my Ph.D. advisor. Since that time, Dr. Nicholas has continued to be a source of knowledge and inspiration that has helped me maintain my technical roots. He was very flexible in my choice of dissertation topic in a novel, unproven area of Information Retrieval using character n-grams to deal with spelling errors, garbles, and multiple languages in text.
Q: Please tell us a little about the trajectory of your career and what you are working on now.
I was in research and development positions for the first two thirds of my career. During that time, I led research and development programs for information retrieval, knowledge representation, and storage, knowledge distillation, and knowledge access and sharing. For the last 10 years I have been responsible for the recruitment, retention, and continued technical health and growth of computer scientists at NSA.
Q: What has been the greatest success in your career? The greatest challenge?
My greatest success was my choice of dissertation topic in a novel, unproven area of information retrieval. This work became the foundation for a series of tools and advances in flexible garble-resistant text retrieval applications.
My greatest challenge was in standing up the office of my current position, NSA/CSS Senior Computer Science Authority. This was a new position and as such, I had to develop the mission and function, goals, and strategic plan for the organization as well as secure the funding and positions to support it. My significant accomplishments in this current position include: (1) the establishment of a computer science development program; (2) the creation and establishment of technical workforce metrics and roadmaps; (3) the creation of new computer science courseware, workshops, and other offerings for the agency’s technical community; and (4) spearheading a university outreach program for computer science.
Q: What are your proudest personal achievements?
I’m an avid quilt maker, and trumpet player. I’ve shown my quilts in juried international competitions and have competed nationally in trumpet competitions. I play trumpet in the Frederick Symphony Orchestra and the Montgomery Village Community Band.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the affiliate and do not reflect those of NSA/CSS.

Check out the other Alumni Award winners.

Over the next few weeks we’ll be introducing you to this year’s Alumni Award winners. The UMBC Alumni Association proudly honors distinguished alumni and faculty for their accomplishments and dedication to UMBC. Today we’re talking with Dr. Claudia Pearce ‘89, computer science, about her career working with the NSA as Senior Computer Science Authority.

Name: Dr. Claudia Pearce ’89 M.S., ’94 Ph.D., computer science
Job Title: Senior Computer Science Authority, NSA
Award Category: Engineering and Information Technology

Q: Why did you choose to attend UMBC?

I chose UMBC because of the quality of the computer science program and its central Maryland location. I am currently NSA Technology Directorate’s Senior Executive Academic Liaison (SEAL) for UMBC.

Q: Is there a particular class or professor at UMBC who really inspired you?

Dr. Charles Nicholas, professor of computer science, was my Ph.D. advisor. Since that time, Dr. Nicholas has continued to be a source of knowledge and inspiration that has helped me maintain my technical roots. He was very flexible in my choice of dissertation topic in a novel, unproven area of Information Retrieval using character n-grams to deal with spelling errors, garbles, and multiple languages in text.

Q: Please tell us a little about the trajectory of your career and what you are working on now.

I was in research and development positions for the first two thirds of my career. During that time, I led research and development programs for information retrieval, knowledge representation, and storage, knowledge distillation, and knowledge access and sharing. For the last 10 years I have been responsible for the recruitment, retention, and continued technical health and growth of computer scientists at NSA.

Q: What has been the greatest success in your career? The greatest challenge?

My greatest success was my choice of dissertation topic in a novel, unproven area of information retrieval. This work became the foundation for a series of tools and advances in flexible garble-resistant text retrieval applications.

My greatest challenge was in standing up the office of my current position, NSA/CSS Senior Computer Science Authority. This was a new position and as such, I had to develop the mission and function, goals, and strategic plan for the organization as well as secure the funding and positions to support it. My significant accomplishments in this current position include: (1) the establishment of a computer science development program; (2) the creation and establishment of technical workforce metrics and roadmaps; (3) the creation of new computer science courseware, workshops, and other offerings for the agency’s technical community; and (4) spearheading a university outreach program for computer science.

Q: What are your proudest personal achievements?

I’m an avid quilt maker, and trumpet player. I’ve shown my quilts in juried international competitions and have competed nationally in trumpet competitions. I play trumpet in the Frederick Symphony Orchestra and the Montgomery Village Community Band.

The views and opinions expressed are those of the affiliate and do not reflect those of NSA/CSS.

Check out the other Alumni Award winners.

Each year, the UMBC Alumni Association presents awards to honor alumni for their professional and personal achievements and service to the University. Throughout the coming weeks, we’ll be introducing you to each award winner individually, but for now, we would like to congratulate them all on their wonderful achievements. 

The UMBC Alumni Association proudly honors these distinguished alumni and faculty for their accomplishments and dedication to the University:

Engineering and Information Technology
Dr. Claudia Pearce ’89 M.S., ’94 Ph.D., Computer Science
Senior Computer Science Authority, NSA