Cybersecurity Workforce

The Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) based security primitives typically suffer from area/power overhead, sensitivity to environmental fluctuations and limited randomness and entropy offered by Silicon substrate. Spintronic circuits can complement the existing CMOS based security and trust infrastructures. This project explores ways to uncover the security specific properties of the magnetic nanowire and capture them in detailed circuit model.

The new CyberCorps(r): Scholarship for Service (SFS) program offered by Marymount University in Arlington, VA educates undergraduate and graduate students in cybersecurity, preparing them for critical positions in the Federal Government. Students are taught and mentored by full-time faculty, with a research focus, and part-time faculty who are working professionals, including SFS alumni.

Crucial and critical needs of security and trust requirements are growing in all classes of applications such as in automobiles and for wearable devices. Traditional cryptographic primitives are computation-intensive and rely on secrecy of shared or session keys, applicable on large systems like servers and secure databases. This is unsuitable for embedded devices with fewer resources for realizing sufficiently strong security. This research addresses new hardware-oriented capabilities and mechanisms for protecting Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

The Web browser is one of the most frequently used application by most people to perform common tasks such as shopping, social networking, emailing, banking, finding directions, and research on the Internet. Security threats and attacks targeting browsers or browser-based applications are becoming sophisticated as attackers are constantly developing innovative ways to exploit vulnerabilities of browsers and browser-based applications. Researchers, though, are making positive progress in mitigating risks from browsers to defend enterprise systems and consumer devices.

While the nation's cities and counties are often closest to residents in providing citizen services, public safety and critical infrastructure such as public health and transport, many have limited staffing, expertise and cybersecurity budgets. Not only are the residents and cities and counties themselves potentially at risk, public safety, public health and critical infrastructure systems are part of larger connected state and national systems. For example, counties own 45% of the U.S. road miles, 40% of the bridges and operate of 30% of public airports and 1,550 health departments.