UMBC undergraduate and graduate students interested in cybersecurity can apply for an Federal CyberCorps: Scholarship For Service scholarship by 15 May 2016. This application deadline will be the last one under the current NSF grant, which ends August 2017.

The Federal CyberCorps: Scholarship For Service program is designed to increase and strengthen the cadre of federal information assurance professionals that protect the government’s critical information infrastructure. This program provides scholarships that may fully fund the typical costs incurred by full-time students while attending a participating institution, including tuition and education and related fees. Participants also receive stipends of $22,500 for undergraduate students and $34,000 for graduate students.

Applicants must be be full-time UMBC students within two years of graduation with a BS or MS degree; a student within three years of graduation with both the BS/MS degree; a student participating in a combined BS/MS degree program; or a research-based doctoral student within three years of graduation in an academic program focused on cybersecurity or information assurance. Recipients must also be US citizens or permanent residents; meet criteria for Federal employment; and be able to obtain a security clearance, if required.

For more information and instructions on how to apply see the UMBC CISA site (use old application form, and be sure to include the cover sheet).

'SUMMER SUBLEASE'

I'm subleasing my room at Westland Gardens town houses (4703 Belwood, Arbutus, MD- 21227) this Summer. 

Sublease schedule: May 21st to August 15th, 2016
Amenities :-
- Entire room available
- It is a 2 bedroom, 1 bath town house
- Spacious rooms, basement; fully furnished
- Well equipped kitchen
- Close to UMBC (1 miles); 15 mins to Downtown (5.5 miles)
- UMBC transit bus stop close to the town house
- Centralized AC/Heating
- Quiet, safe and peaceful
Please mail me at siraj1@umbc.edu with Subject: Sublease in it if interested.

The leak of confidential financial documents from a Panamanian law firm, known as the “Panama Papers,” has raised major questions about how wealth moves across international borders. For governments and companies that manage sensitive information, it’s also raised questions about the possibilities and limitations of safeguards designed to protect data. Karuna Pande Joshi, research assistant professor of computer science and electrical engineering, explains through a new op-ed in The Conversation how data breaches occur, how to avoid them, and how they are, at some point, unavoidable.

Joshi describes how companies often devote resources to protect data from external hackers and cyber attacks, but that internal threats raise different challenges. “Organizations spend significant resources to firewall their data against attacks by external hackers and cybercriminals,” Joshi says. “However, they have to often face the dichotomy of effectively preventing leaks of data by the very employees who need to use it for their daily work.”

One common issue that companies need to deal with is the use of smartphones in the workplace, and the increasing capacity of smartphones, Joshi says. Some employers allow employees to access confidential data with their smartphones and store it on the device for easier access in the future.

Companies can configure computers in ways that prevent people from printing, moving, or copying documents, Joshi says, but doing so can have the negative impact of restricting employee access to documents and data in ways that make it difficult for them to accomplish their duties. “In today’s world, where employees often collaborate on documents and use shared data sets to complete their work, it is impossible to prevent an insider attack,” notes Joshi.

Read the full article, “Panama Papers: how do leakers leak?,” in The Conversation.

Image: Karuna Pande Joshi. Phoyo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.