Professor Anupam Joshi, chair of the CSEE Department and director of the UMBC Center for Cybersecurity

With a new administration in the White House, securing the president’s smartphone is a national security priority, but exactly what steps are taken to secure the phone are not made public. In a new article in The Conversation, Anupam Joshi, professor and chair of computer science and electrical engineering, and director of the Center for Cybersecurity at UMBC, discusses several likely ways President Trump’s security team is building protections into his phone, through everything from hardware to settings to app restrictions.

Limiting the number of people who have the president’s new phone number and keeping the unique International Mobile Equipment Identity number guarded can prevent potential attackers from accessing confidential information stored on the phone. This method is called “security by obscurity,” says Joshi.

Joshi also says the device Trump will use was likely made by a trusted manufacturer with carefully created and checked parts, explaining that this minimizes the “risk that the hardware would have any vulnerabilities that an attacker could exploit.”

Customizing the operating system, and allowing the phone to connect only with predetermined networks that are regularly monitored can also help protect against attacks, says Joshi. “Limiting its contact with the internet would, of course, by key,” he notes, “though that would also significantly limit the phone’s usefulness to a president whose routine involves constant connection.” Joshi says that limiting the number of apps on the phone, reducing the ability for additional apps to be downloaded and installed, and disabling automatic updates to the phone could keep the device even more secure.

While it is not certain which methods have been employed to secure the presidential smartphone, Joshi says that Trump trading in his commercial-grade phone for a government-secured device is an important first step in protecting the U.S. from hacks and attacks.

In another article in The Conversation, Rick Forno, assistant director of the UMBC Center for Cybersecurity and director of the Cybersecurity Graduate Program at UMBC, addresses the importance of addressing both short-term and long-term cybersecurity issues. He explains that ignoring underlying problems and only addressing small, attention-grabbing issues does not lead to lasting progress. “Cyber-fatigue,” explains Forno, is an “inability to think critically about what needs to happen for meaningful, lasting cybersecurity improvements while focusing only on near-term problems.”

He says that while it is important to evaluate the benefits, conveniences and savings that new products and services may offer, the potential risks and problems should be considered, too. “So instead of repeating the same guidelines and recommendations of the past, it’s time to take a new and unconventional look at our approach to technology and how we secure it,” Forno explains. “Unless we’re willing to go beyond our traditional cybersecurity ‘comfort zone’ and explore new solutions, our cyber-fatigue will worsen.”

Read “How to secure a smartphone for the tweeter-in-chief” and “Overcoming ‘cyber-fatigue’ requires users to step up for security” in The Conversation. Joshi’s piece also appeared in Mashable and Channel Newsasia, and together the articles have already been read over 36,000 times.

Adapted from UMBC News, photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

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The Capital Area Women in Computing Celebration, sponsored by ACM-W, will be held at Georgetown University on Friday, February 24th and Saturday, February 25.

The celebration will bring together women at the high school, undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels to promote the recruitment, retention, and progression of women in computing fields.

The cost of student attendance is modest: $50 with shared hotel room, or $25 without hotel. Scholarships are available as well.

To get more infomration and to register, visit the CAPWIC 2017 Web site.

Reasons to Attend

• Share your work and ideas with your peers and experts during the poster session, flash talk, or technical short.
• Be inspired. Meet technical women like you and celebrate your accomplishments together.
• Hear success stories of technical women who made it this far!
• Broaden your skills by attending a workshop.
• Meet recruiters from business, industry, and academia for internships, jobs, or graduate programs.
• Find a new job or internship. Bring your resume to our career fair to apply for job and internship opportunities.
• Did we mention that it is FUN!

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The Capital Area Women in Computing Celebration, sponsored by ACM-W, will be held at Georgetown University on Friday, February 24th and Saturday, February 25.

The celebration will bring together women at the high school, undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels to promote the recruitment, retention, and progression of women in computing fields.

The cost of student attendance is modest: $50 with shared hotel room, or $25 without hotel. Scholarships are available as well.

To get more information and to register, visit the CAPWIC 2017 Web site.

Reasons to Attend

• Share your work and ideas with your peers and experts during the poster session, flash talk, or technical short.
• Be inspired. Meet technical women like you and celebrate your accomplishments together.
• Hear success stories of technical women who made it this far!
• Broaden your skills by attending a workshop.
• Meet recruiters from business, industry, and academia for internships, jobs, or graduate programs.
• Find a new job or internship. Bring your resume to our career fair to apply for job and internship opportunities.
• Did we mention that it is FUN!

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UMBC Chess finished seventh overall at the 2016 Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship, held in New Orleans, Louisiana, December 27–30.

The UMBC Chess A team finished in 10th place, with victories over the Texas Tech D team, the University of Oklahoma A team, the Columbia University B team, and the Arizona State University team. The UMBC Chess B team earned wins over the Texas Tech E team, and the University of Minnesota Twin Cities B team, and finished 45th overall.

UMBC’s 2016 A team includes international master Levan Bregadze ‘16, financial economics; grandmaster Tanguy Ringoir ‘19, economics; woman FIDE master Ewa Harazinska ’20, chemistry; and Maor Leker Locker ’20, biological sciences. The UMBC Chess B team includes Dobrynya Konoplev ‘18, computer science and mechanical engineering; Nathan Janus ’20, mathematics; Nathaniel Wong ‘18, Asian studies and political science; Abhilash Puranik ‘17, M.S. computer engineering; and Jeffrey Mich Carr ’19, interdisciplinary studies.

UMBC has participated in the Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship for 26 years, and has won or tied for first place at the Pan-Am Championship ten times. UMBC Chess has also continued on to the President’s Cup—known as the Final Four of College Chess—numerous times, but did not qualify for 2017.

At the 2015 Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship, the UMBC Chess A team finished in 10th place, and the UMBC Chess B team finished 31st overall. Alan Sherman, professor of computer science and electrical engineering, serves as director for UMBC Chess and Joel DeWyer, interim director of The Commons, is business manager.

UMBC Chess made headlines earlier in 2016 when Nazi Paikidze-Barnes, information systems, an alumna of the team, won the 2016 U.S. Women’s Chess Championship held in St. Louis.

Reposted from UMBC News. Image: Members of the UMBC Chess A team before attending the 2016 Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship. Photo by Marlayna Demond ‘11 for UMBC.

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At one table, thirteen Lakeland Elementary/Middle School students from Baltimore used tablets to create patterns of colorful shapes through code. At another station, the students composed music and played games on laptops by completing circuits connected to bananas and celery.

The scene in UMBC’s Commons last Thursday was just what Gabrielle Salib ‘17, interdisciplinary studies, had hoped for. “Our world is quickly becoming more automated and by learning how to code, as President Obama has said, we ‘become the creators rather than just the consumers’ of our ever-growing tech society,” shared Salib. She is president of UMBC’s Computer Science Education student organization, which organized the event as part of the international Hour of Code movement

UMBC joined thousands of schools around the world in hosting Hour of Code events to celebrate Computer Science Education Week, drawing both UMBC students and younger area students to learn about circuits, coding, and computing through hands-on activities.

“Hour of Code events are a great way to gain visibility and awareness of the importance of CS for All,” said Marie desJardins, COEIT associate dean and professor of computer science, and faculty advisor of the Computer Science Education student organization. “It’s especially important to reach out to young women and minority students in their critical middle school years, and to connect them with peers and role models they can relate to.”

“The Hour of Code day is especially important for our Technovation Club because two days a week our girls spend two hours learning how to code and how to develop their own apps,” said Acacia Asbell, a project director for UMBC’s Sherman STEM Teacher Scholars Program who works closely with Lakeland Elementary School. “This event really reinforces how important coding is, and how they can have an impact on the world around them.”

The Lakeland Elementary School students were not the only ones to gain valuable experience from the event. “Our student volunteers also benefited by increasing their own confidence in their skills, connecting with other students and faculty, and knowing that they are making a difference in the world around them,” said desJardins.

Dr. Marie desJardins, President Freeman Hrabowski, and Gabrielle Salib ’17, interdisciplinary studies, working with Lakeland Elementary/Middle School students at the Hour of Code.

One major challenge with engaging young student in coding is the intimidation factor, UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski told The Baltimore Sun, at the event. He noted that Hour of Code events give hands-on experience that removes that barrier and encourages young students to pursue college degrees and careers in technical fields.

For Salib, that hands-on experience is core to bringing home the point that anyone can code, and that coding can open doors to creative careers.“I had some students tell me that coding was much more fun than they thought it’d be,” she said. “That was precisely the purpose of our event: to show the UMBC community that they, too, can code!”

Read “City students get early exposure to computer careers at UMBC” in The Baltimore Sun.

Adapted from an article on UMBC News by Megan Hanks

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 The UMBC Cyber Defense Lab presents

Lexumo Tech Talk: Continuous Open Source Code Security

Dr. Richard T. Carback III
Lexumo, Inc.

11:15am Friday, 16 December 2016, ITE 237, UMBC

Host: Alan T. Sherman (*protected email*)

The UMBC Cyber Defense Lab (CDL) meets biweekly Fridays 11:15am-12:30pm in ITE 229, for research talks about cybersecurity.

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UMBC’s Mobile Pervasive and Sensor Systems Laboratory is collaborating with researchers at the Army Research Laboratory as part of their Center For Adaptive Soldier Technologies (CAST) laboratory. The UMBC group, led by Prof. Nilanjan Banerjee, is funded to work on the Human Variablility Project. The ARL described and motivates the project as follows.

“While it is understood that significant behavioral and performance variability within Soldiers exists, there is a clear knowledge gap with respect to quantifying and predicting the degree and dynamics of this variability. We posit that this critical scientific gap that has led to inflexible systems designed to mitigate against human variability by simplifying system operations and interfaces to be usable by operators performing at below-average levels. Alternatively, by understanding and predicting human variability across multiple time scales, we will enable adaptive system designs that are dynamic and capable of eliciting the full potential of the humans with which they interact.”

As part of this project, UMBC researchers are developing novel sensors and virtual reality environments to collect human behavioral and physiology data to study the variability of human states in immersive environments.

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UMBC CSEE Professor Marie desJardins was elected as a as Member-at-Large of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Professor desJardins will serve a four-year term as one of four AAAS members representing the field of Information, Computing, and Communication. AAAS members-at large are charged with assessing the performance and role of their section in the Association and working to involve its members in AAAS activities and professional interactions.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization dedicated to advancing advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all people. Established in 1848, the AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society, with more than 120,000 members.

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MS Thesis Defense

Attacking and Defending the Automotive CAN Bus

Jackson Schmandt

12:30pm Thursday, 8 December, 2016, ITE 325b, UMBC

The scope and complexity of Automotive Computer Networks have grown drastically in the last decade. Once present only in high end vehicles, multi-use infotainment systems are now included in base models of some economy vehicles. Frequently connected to drivetrain components, these systems bring out multiple network access points, many of which are wireless. This unprecedented access has led to several high-profile exploits from both white-hat hackers and criminals. Although industry members are working toward long-term solutions, current systems suffer from inadequate protocol security and a lack of common-sense design practices. To address the security problem in the short term, this thesis describes a flexible Message Authentication Code that can be retrofitted with software only, as well as implementations on microcontrollers, an FPGA and an ASIC design. This work shows that on current embedded controllers, message authentication tags can be generated or verified in under 400 microseconds and in under 10 microseconds on a special-purpose ASIC.

Committee Members: Drs. Nilanjan Banerjee (chair), Alan Sherman (co-chair) and Anupam Joshi

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Diana Parr, adjunct instructor in UMBC’s Cybersecurity Graduate Program, has been selected to participate in the highly competitive Brookings Legis Congressional Fellows Program. The year-long program allows professionals in the public and private sectors to work on Capitol Hill alongside individual members of the U.S. Congress or on a congressional committee to understand the policy-making side of government.

“I am most excited about the opportunity to work for a member of Congress and to learn how the legislative process flows. It will be a huge time for change on Capitol Hill—a new president and many newly elected officials. I would like to bring my technical knowledge to the Hill as those new officials discuss legislation relating to cybersecurity,” she said.

In addition to her role at UMBC, Parr is a cybersecurity technical leader for the National Security Agency. She anticipates that her work in Congress will focus on cybersecurity education.

“There are many opportunities for new legislation this year to make our nation stronger and safer,” Parr said. “My biggest hope is to build awareness of the need to grow educational opportunities for young people, especially young women, in the growing field of cybersecurity.”

More information about the Brookings Legis Congressional Fellows Program can be found on the Brookings Institution website.

Republished from UMBC News, header image by Robert Lyle Bolton (CC by 2.0), headshot by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

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