ACM Tech Talk Series

​A Practitioner’s Introduction to Deep Learning

​Ashwin Kumar Ganesan, PhD student

1:00-2:00pm Friday, 17 November 2017​, ITE325, UMBC

In recent years, Deep Neural Networks have been highly successful at performing a number of tasks in computer vision, natural language processing and artificial intelligence in general. The remarkable performance gains have led to universities and industries investing heavily in this space. This investment creates a thriving open source ecosystem of tools & libraries that aid the design of new architectures, algorithm research as well as data collection.

This talk (and hands-on session) introduce people to some of the basics of machine learning, neural networks and discusses some of the popular neural network architectures. We take a dive into one of the popular libraries, Tensorflow, and an associated abstraction library Keras.

To participate in the hands-on aspects of the workshop, bring a laptop computer with Python installed and install the following libraries using pip.  For windows or (any other OS) consider doing an installation of anaconda that has all the necessary libraries.

• numpy, scipy & scikit-learn
• tensorflow / tensoflow-gpu (The first one is the GPU version)
• matplotlib for visualizations (if necessary)
• jupyter & ipython (We will use python2.7 in our experiments)

Following are helpful links:

• https://www.tensorflow.org/install/
• https://www.scipy.org/install.html

Contact Nisha Pillai (NPillai1 at umbc.edu) with any questions regarding this event.

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The UMBC Cyber Defense Lab presents

Winning NCCDC, and its practicality in the real world

Bryan Vanek, CSEE, UMBC

12:00noon–1pm Friday, 3 November 2017, ITE 231

The National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (NCCDC) takes place every year and gives students an environment where they can develop understanding and operational competency in managing and protecting corporate network infrastructure and business information systems. Competitors participate as the blue team, and try to protect their machines from being infiltrated by the red team, while simultaneously keeping critical services up and running in order for a mock business to stay up and running. After an immense amount of preparation and strife, the UMBC Cyber Defense Team took home its first national title for the competition this year. But what exactly did the team do to prepare for this competition? What exactly happened at the different stages of the competition? And just how practical are these situations in the real world? One of the winning team members will be covering these questions in this week’s CDL, so we hope to see you there!

Bryan Vanek is a UMBC undergraduate computer science major and mathematics minor. In addition to being one of the winning team members for NCCDC, he is currently serving as the president for the UMBC Cyber Defense Team, and is a CWIT T-SITE scholar. He currently works at Interclypse Inc. as a security engineer and software developer, and has had multiple internships and jobs dealing with aspects of computer development and security. Most recently he has completed his second internship at the Department of Defense  in the Summer Internship Program for Information Assurance. Upon graduation he will be returning to the DoD as a member of the Computer Network Operations development Program.

Host: Alan T. Sherman, *protected email*

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Open House: UMBC Graduate Professional Programs

The Fall Open House for UMBC Professional Programs, including the graduate programs on Cybersecurity and Data Science, takes place this coming Wednesday evening, 25 October 2017, at BWTECH South (map) from 6:00-7:30pm.

Students interested in pursuing such programs (MPS degrees and/or certificates) or just to learn more about the field are encouraged to register and attend. Current students interested in pursuing a BS/MPS option for selected programs (such as Cybersecurity or Data Science) are especially welcome.

Attendees who apply to start in Spring 18 will have their UMBC application fee waived.

The programs represented include:

• Cybersecurity
• Data Science
• Engineering Management
• Systems Engineering
• Health Information Technology
• Instructional Systems Development

Program directors for these programs will present in individual breakout sessions and relevant support staff from DPS, the UMBC Graduate School, Veterans Affairs, etc. will be on-hand to provide administrative overviews, answer questions, and mingle. Refreshments will be provided.

for more information, directions and to register, see here.

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The UMBC Cyber Defense Lab presents

BFT—From the “Saddest Moment” to the Era of Blockchains

Haibin Zhang, CSEE, UMBC

12:00–1:00pm, Friday, 20 October 2017, ITE 231

Blockchains can generally be divided into two categories: permissionless blockchains (e.g., Bitcoin, Ethereum), and permissioned blockchains (e.g., Hyperledger Fabric). In permissionless blockchains, anyone can participate in the protocol. In permissioned blockchains, participants know the IDs of all other participants but do not need to trust them, a particularly useful scenario for business applications. As an emerging technology transforming business models, permissioned blockchains inspired a large number of industrial implementations. The Hyperledger Project (under the Linux Foundation) became a global collaborative project, now with 150+ industry members. Byzantine fault-tolerant (BFT) protocols regained prominence because they can support permissioned blockchain systems. For building permissioned blockchains, BFT is widely regarded as the most appropriate primitive, one accepted by academe and industry. In this talk, I will describe a number of efficient BFT blockchain systems that I helped invent, including BChain, ByzID, CBFT, and secure causal BFT. In addition, I will share my vision for blockchains and associated research opportunities.

Haibin Zhang is an assistant professor in the CSEE Department at UMBC. He is interested in cloud computing, cryptography, security, privacy, and distributed systems. He received the best paper candidate award at the 33rd IEEE International Symposium on Reliable Distributed Systems and proved the security of a NIST standard on ciphertext stealing.  Zhang is one of the main inventors of Norton Zone, Symantec’s scalable cloud storage, and BChain, a highly efficient BFT protocol fully implemented within Hyperledger blockchain framework.

Host: Alan T. Sherman, *protected email*

The UMBC Cyber Defense Lab meets biweekly Fridays.  All meetings are open to the public

In spring 2018, Sherman will teach a CMSC-491/691 special topics class on blockchains and digital currencies.

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The UMBC Cybersecurity program at USG Speaker Series Presents

The Internet of Things (IoT)

With speaker

William (Bill) Fisher, NCCoE Security Engineer

Building III – Room 4230 (Universities @ Shady Grove Campus)

Monday, October 30th 6:00-8:00 pm

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the inevitable result of years of Moore’s law – compact, cheap, chip platforms that can take ordinarily house hold items and make them data generating and collection devices that users can manage with their smart phone, web browser or their favorite automation platform. Physical proximity is no longer needed for things like cameras, door locks or thermostats. Instead users remotely access all of these “things” while on the go, even sharing some of their favorite things with friends and family, who need not own the thing, but simply be granted access through a web portal or mobile application. Like many technology trends before it, the IoT has brought great innovation but also great security challenges. These challenges go beyond standards and technology to economic and market forces that hinder security best practices, even for some of the most basic cyber hygiene. Join Bill Fisher of the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence for a presentation on these challenges and basic mitigations organizations can put into place to help alleviate the risk that the IoT devices pose to consumers and the enterprise.

Speaker Bio:

Bill Fisher is a security engineer at the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE). In this role, he is responsible for leading a team of engineers that work collaboratively with industry partners to address cybersecurity business challenges facing the nation. He leads the center’s Attribute Based Access Control (ABAC) project, Mobile Application Single Sign On (SSO) for the Public Safety and First Responder Sector, and is part of the ITL Cybersecurity for IoT program. Prior to his work at the NCCoE, Mr. Fisher was a program security advisor for the System High Corporation in support of the Network Security Deployment division at the Department of Homeland Security. He holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from American University and a master’s degree in cybersecurity from Johns Hopkins University.

Host: Dr. Behnam Shariati (*protected email*) and UMBC Graduate Cybersecurity Association at USG

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Attacks on Smart Cards, RFIDs and Embedded Systems

Prof. Keith Mayes
Royal Holloway University of London

10-11:00am Tuesday, 10 October 2017, ITE 325, UMBC

Smart Cards and RFIDs exist with a range of capabilities and are used in their billions throughout the world. The simpler devices have poor security, however, for many years, high-end smart cards have successfully been used in a range of systems such as banking, passports, mobile communication, satellite TV etc. Fundamental to their success is a specialist design to offer remarkable resistance to a wide range of attacks, including physical, side-channel and fault. This talk describes a range of known attacks and the countermeasures that are employed to defeat them.

Prof. Keith Mayes is the Head of the School of Mathematics and Information Security at Royal Holloway University of London. He received his BSc (Hons) in Electronic Engineering in 1983 from the University of Bath, and his PhD degree in Digital Image Processing in 1987. He is an active researcher/author with 100+ publications in numerous conferences, books and journals. His interests include the design of secure protocols, communications architectures and security tokens as well as associated attacks/countermeasures. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, a Founder Associate Member of the Institute of Information Security Professionals, a Member of the Licensing Executives Society and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research (JTAER).

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Lecture by James Clapper, former US Director of Intelligence, 12-1pm Fri. Oct. 6 at UMBC

James R. Clapper, former US Director of Intelligence, will give a public lecture on Friday, 6 October 2017 in the lecture hall (room 132) of the Performing Arts & Humanities Building at UMBC.

The Honorable James R. Clapper served as the fourth US Director of Intelligence from August 9, 2010 to January 20, 2017. In this position, Mr. Clapper led the United States Intelligence Community and served as the principal intelligence advisor to President Barack Obama.

Mr. Clapper retired in 1995 after a distinguished career in the U.S. Armed Forces. His career began in 1961 when he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve and culminated as a lieutenant general in the U.S. Air Force and Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. His intelligence-related positions over his 32 years in uniform included Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence at Headquarters, US Air Force during Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm, and Director of Intelligence for three combatant commands: US Forces, Korea; Pacific Command, and Strategic Air Command. He served two combat tours during the Southeast Asia conflict, and flew 73 combat support missions in EC-47’s over Laos and Cambodia.

Directly following his retirement, Mr. Clapper worked in industry for six years as an executive in three successive companies with the Intelligence Community as his business focus. He also served as a consultant and advisor to Congress and to the Departments of Defense and Energy, and as a member of a variety of government panels, boards, commissions, and advisory groups. He was a senior member of the Downing Assessment Task Force which investigated the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, was vice chairman of a commission chaired by former Governor Jim Gilmore of Virginia on the subject of homeland security, and served on the NSA Advisory Board.

Mr. Clapper returned to the government two days after 9/11 as the first civilian director of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA). He served in this capacity for almost five years, transforming it into the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) as it is today.

Prior to becoming the Director of National Intelligence, Mr. Clapper served for over the three years in two Administrations as the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, where he served as the principal staff assistant and advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary on intelligence, counterintelligence, and security matters for the Department. In this capacity, he was also dual-hatted as the Director of Defense Intelligence for the DNI.

Mr. Clapper earned a bachelor’s degree in government and politics from the University of Maryland, a master’s degree in political science from St. Mary’s University, San Antonio, Texas, and an honorary doctorate in strategic intelligence form the then Joint Military Intelligence College.

His awards include three National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medals, two Defense Distinguished Service Medals, the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal, the Coast Guard’s Distinguished Public Service Award, three Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Awards, the Presidentially-conferred National Security Medal, and many other U.S. civilian and military, as well as foreign government awards and decorations.

He is married to the former Susan Terry, and they have two grown children and four grandchildren

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The Center for Women in Technology (CWIT) welcomes Cindy Greenwood as their new Assistant Director. Ms. Greenwood will spearhead the new Cyber Scholars Program which kicks off this fall.

Cindy Greenwood loved college so much that she never wanted to leave.

So she didn’t.  

When an Advertising and Public Relations internship during her senior year of college showed Ms. Greenwood that it wasn’t the career for her, she switched gears. She let her heart decide.

“I felt like I could make more of a difference by going into higher education,” she says.

Greenwood knows first-hand the difference that the college experience can make. Raised in Ishpeming, Michigan–a small town of no more than 7,000 people that is “half the size of UMBC,” she says—Ms. Greenwood thought it would always be her home. That is, until she left for Grand Valley State University.  

“A college campus is like no place else. You can do anything,” says Ms. Greenwood. “You can go from a cultural event where you’re trying food from Cambodia, to a dance party with glowsticks.” The atmosphere of possibility urged her to try new things, like studying abroad in Australia.

Afterwards, a master’s program in Higher Education Administration at the Leadership Center of Washington State University beckoned to her. After graduating, Ms. Greenwood spent eight years working for and with college students, first at Ferris State University in Michigan, and then at the University of South Florida.

In 2011, she joined UMBC as the Alumni Programming Coordinator in the Office of Institutional Advancement. Here, she started the Student Alumni Association to help connect current students with alumni. Hungry for more one-on-one time with undergraduates, Ms. Greenwood volunteered to be the advisor for the UMBC Vegetarian Student Group.

It’s the chance to work with students on a daily basis that drew her to the Assistant Director position in the Center for Women in Technology, she says. Ms. Greenwood will coordinate the new Cyber Scholars Program, which is run in partnership by CWIT and the UMBC Center for Cybersecurity. Her duties include overseeing the Cyber Scholars Living Learning Community, planning events, advising scholars, and teaching a seminar and bridge program for Cyber Scholars.

“The scholars programs are really interesting [at UMBC] because they really touch on every part of students’ lives,” says Greenwood.

An advocate of social justice and equality, Ms. Greenwood says she identifies with CWIT’s mission to bolster support for women in the male-centered fields of Engineering and Information Technology. She is a co-chair of UMBC’s Presidents Commission of Women. In the end it all comes back to her experience in college.

“I’ve had some good female mentors throughout my career,” says Ms. Greenwood, “and I definitely hope to be that to other females as well.”

*Ms. Greenwood joins CWIT as Assistant Director on January 28, 2013.

Join a webcast of the Federal government's cybersecurity research and development strategies from 1:00pm to 3:00pm EST on Tuesday 27 November 2012. Senior Federal representatives will review Government activities in implementing the Federal cybersecurity R&D strategic plan and discuss emerging areas in cybersecurity research that may warrant further focus. The webcast session is part of the National Science Foundation's Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace PI Meeting. Addional information about the Federal Cybersecurity R&D program is available online.

DATE POSTED: 11/12/12
POSITION TITLE: Assistant Director, CWIT
CATEGORY: Professional
PERSONNEL STATUS: Exempt, Full time, Regular Note:  Position in for a three-year term.
DEPARTMENT: Center for Women in Technology (CWIT)
CLOSING DATE: 11/26/12

RESPONSIBILITIES: The incumbent will provide for the administration of the Cyber Scholars Program and Cyber Living Learning Community (LLC), including all recruitment, retention, and graduation activities. The Cyber Scholars Program is housed in the new Cyber security Center and run in partnership with UMBC's Center for Women in Technology.

Specific duties include: planning and implementation of the Cyber Scholars Program; developing recruitment activities in coordination with UMBC’s Office of Admissions and Orientation, other UMBC Scholar programs, the Cyber Security Center, and departments within College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT); overseeing the Cyber LLC, including coordinating selection initiatives and working closely with the Resident Assistant to encourage community and a supportive learning environment; providing individual and group advising for all Cyber Scholars and LLC members; executing skill-building and professional development events for students; planning and instructing a seminar and bridge program for Cyber Scholars; advising and student planning committees for large events; serving as a liaison between the program and officials within and outside the institution; assisting in the formulation of the organization’s budgets and project proposals; supporting secondary school outreach, including executing CWIT’s annual outreach program, Bits & Bytes; supporting major CWIT and UMBC events to ensure their success; answering mail, phone and walk-in inquiries from prospective students; and performing other duties as assigned.

The UMBC Center for Cybersecurity is an interdisciplinary university center that unifies UMBC’s many cybersecurity capabilities. The Center aims to provide both Maryland and the nation with academic and research leadership, collaboration, innovation, and outreach in this critical discipline by streamlining our academic, research, workforce development, and technology incubation activities to advance UMBC’s position as a leading research university in cybersecurity-related disciplines.

CWIT is dedicated to increasing the representation of women among those who create technology in engineering and information technology fields. CWIT strives to nurture a strong group of Scholars (including CWIT, T-SITE and Cyber Scholars), build community resources for other women

in these majors, foster a healthy gender climate and ITE pedagogy in College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) departments, and conducts outreach activities to increase interest in technical careers.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS: Requires a Bachelor’s degree (Master’s degree in a student support or technical field preferred) and student support experience. Strong organizational, writing, and verbal communications skills required. Some experience interacting with organizations in the cyber sector is a plus.

SALARY: Starting salary range at $50,000, commensurate with qualifications and experience.

APPLICATION: For best consideration, submit a cover letter, resume and contact information for three professional references by November 26, 2012 by email to cwitadmin@umbc.edu. Resumes will be accepted until the position is filled.

As required by the 1986 Immigration Act, be prepared to present acceptable documentation showing your identity and that you are a U.S. citizen or an alien who is authorized to work.

UMBC IS AN AFFIRMATIVE ACTION/EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER.