Privacy legislation focused on biometric identifiers, ransomware attacks in Maryland and cyber workforce education were among the topics in the spotlight at the CyberMaryland 2023 conference and trade show, which received support from University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC) and featured a well-attended cyber competition.
The annual event, held this year at the College Park Marriott Hotel & Conference Center on Dec. 6 and 7, offered learning opportunities for all levels, including professionals in the industry, students and educators. As in years past, UMGC played a big role in the success of the two-day event, from the opening remarks by UMGC President Gregory Fowler to the UMGC cyber taking part on panel discussions. The conference’s cyber competition was hosted by UMGC.
In his remarks to kick off the conference, Fowler emphasized the importance of partnerships and education in protecting Maryland citizens and enterprises.
“UMGC is part of the Maryland cyber ecology,” said Fowler. “We are in integral part of the example of how industry, education and government can work together to support an evolving agenda.”
Greg Von Lehman, UMGC’s special assistant to the president for cybersecurity, moderated a keynote panel focusing on activities in the Maryland General Assembly. The panel addressed current legislation designed to protect the privacy of Maryland citizens.
Panelist and State Delegate Sara Love discussed the sweeping privacy bill she is championing. House Bill 218, the Biometric Identifiers and Biometric Information Privacy Act, would establish rules for private entities possessing the biometric identifiers and biometric information of an individual. Maryland State Senator Katie Fry Hester, who also took part on the panel, reiterated the importance of partnership.
“While the government can do a lot, the government can't do cybersecurity alone,” said Fry Hester. “The issues we face require a collective approach.”
Fry Hester cited the devastating financial and human impact of three recent attacks in Maryland: the 2019 ransomware attack on the City of Baltimore, the 2020 Baltimore County Public Schools attack and the 2022 Maryland Department of Healthcare ransomware attack. She said the attacks provided the impetus for a whole-state approach to cybersecurity.
Three recent bills passed into law help pave the way for a comprehensive approach to cybersecurity that encompasses Maryland state and local governments, K-12 education, businesses and individuals. Senate Bill 801 focuses on workforce infrastructure to create a robust jobs pipeline, Senate Bill 812 formed the foundation of the Cyber Governance Act of 2022 to create a statewide centralization strategy, and Senate bill 754 resulted in the Local Support Act of 2022, which codified a cyber preparedness unit.
Rob Joyce, who heads the National Security Agency’s Cybersecurity Directorate, provided the first day's keynote address and highlighted the national security challenges in cybersecurity as they continue to grow in number and sophistication across industries, government and the military.
Infusing cybersecurity into K-12 education was the topic of a panel of teachers who facilitated the 2023 GenCyber camp, held at UMGC in July. Professor Brandie Shatto, director of the Instructional Technology program at UMGC, and her colleagues discussed why it is important to teach K-12 educators to implement cyber into non-STEM disciplines.
“By opening the program to non-STEM teachers, we could get kids interested in cybersecurity at a younger age,” said Shatto.
The goal of the 2023 conference was to introduce more students to cybersecurity fundamentals, concept and ethics, as well as the emerging world of virtual reality. For example, in an English curriculum, teachers might discuss the grammatical mistakes seen in phishing emails, while social studies classes offer an opportunity to examine why people are easy targets and who perpetrates these attacks.
Jimmy Robertson, chair of the Computer Science and Software Development and Security program at UMGC, offered an overview of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) tools being used to secure virtual environments against cyberattacks. Weighing the pros and cons, Robertson provided a survey of AWS AI/ML scanning tools used for real-life workloads and demonstrated some of the false positives that may result for them.
As the two-day CyberMaryland conference unfolded, a well-attended cybersecurity capture-the-flag (CTF) competition hosted by UMGC was underway across the hall. The event offered competition tracks for high schools, community colleges and four-year colleges and universities.
Each day, teams participated in a three-hour, 100-question CTF challenge encompassing 10 categories: encoding/encryption, file analysis, forensics/hard disks, log analysis, malware analysis, reverse engineering, network captures/wireless, open-source intelligence, passwords/hashing, scanning/exploitation and virtual machines.
UMGC cyber competition teams took first and second place in the Four-Year University portion of the competition, with Stevenson University finishing third.
“Our team continues to grow,” said Jesse Varsalone, collegiate associate professor of cybersecurity technology at UMGC. “Many of our team members are working in the field, so their cyber skills are well developed, and our wins were evidence of that.”
The winning UMGC team included Michael Frauenhoffer, Matthew Holt, Aidan Bennet and Morgan Morgan. Bennet, the only undergraduate on the team, answered 25 questions correctly, which was the best performance by any individual at during the two-day event. The second-place team consisted of four undergraduate students: Maxwell Troisi-Rauschenberger, Hugo Concha, Eduardo Figueroa and Adrian Matthews.
Thirty-eight teams participated in the high school competition, with Loyola High School, a private institution in Baltimore County, taking the top two spots and South River High School in Anne Arundel County finishing third.
The Community College competition drew six teams. A team from the Community College of Baltimore County took the top spot. Teams from Montgomery College finishing second and third.
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