Competing with others to solve a challenge is a fun way to get your foot in the door in cybersecurity and learn how to protect yourself online. The first CNSP challenge is about password security and multi-factor authentication. The 2 best submissions will be rewarded with a $25 gift card and optionally recognized on CNSP social media. At least one of the winners selected will be an aspiring professional or student. https://www.csnp.org/challenge.
The President and Co-Founder of Chicago’s CNSP (CyberSecurity NonProfit) is ITM Alumnus Abdel Sy Fane. Abdel earned his Bachelor of Information Technology and Management and Master of Cyber Forensics and Security as a co-terminal student in May of 2014; he is a Senior Manager for Security & Privacy at Protiviti. BITM alumnus Oluseyi Akinlolu serves as Director of Africa for CNSP.
ITM Adjunct Industry Professor Thomas “T.J.” Johnson was recently profiled by the I.T. website IDG Connect as “The Secret CSO.” The CISO at Server Central Turing Group, as an ITM faculty member Professor Johnson is a winner of the Jeffrey Kimont Memorial Teaching Award and is a member of the ITM Curriculum Committee and the Center for Cyber Security and Forensics Education Advisory Board. He received his Master of Information Technology and Management in May 2012. Congratulations to T.J. for this recognition of his professional expertise!
The Cyber Career Pathways Tool from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency will help you identify, build, and navigate a potential cyber career pathway by increasing your understanding of the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to begin, transition, or advance your cyber career. The tool presents a new and interactive way to explore work roles within the NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework. It depicts the cyber workforce as five distinct, yet complementary, skill communities. It also highlights core attributes among each of the 52 work roles and offers actionable insights for employers, professionals, and individuals considering a career in cyber. https://niccs.us-cert.gov/workforce-development/cyber-career-pathways.
ITM Adjunct Industry Professor Shawn Davis, Master of Information Technology and Management alumnus and winner of the Jeffrey Kimont Memorial Teaching award, has been appointed to the United States Department of Commerce’s Advisory Committee on Data for Evidence Building. See the full details at https://www.iit.edu/news/itm-adjunct-professor-named-federal-committee-data-evidence-building Congratulations to Shawn for this recognition of his professional expertise!
Google Drive File Stream: We’ve recently had a great addition to our Google for Education services: Google Drive File Stream.
Like many good things around here, this was brought to our attention by one of our students.
Google Drive File Stream, once installed on your Windows PC or Mac, will mount your Illinois Tech Google Drive as a local drive on your system. You can treat it just like any other drive; in Windows it even has a drive letter. And it’s fast. You get two directories on the drive: your own Google Drive and your Shared Drives (what used to he called Team Drives). Log onto your Illinois Tech Google account and go to https://support.google.com/drive/answer/7329379 to download the app and get started. First uninstall the Google Drive application or Google Drive Backup and Sync app if you have either installed. For some reason the text in the installation app on both PCs we installed it on appeared as gibberish, but you might want to use the command-line installer anyway. Open a command line in your download directory, and run “
GoogleDriveFSSetup --silent --desktop_shortcut --gsuite_shortcuts=false
“. There is a daily limit of 750 GB of file transfer but this just means you can’t upload your terabyte hard drive all in one day. A HUGE workflow enhancer; enjoy!
Most of us are familiar with the huge quantity of cybersecurity publications from the National Institute for Standards and Technology, but they have a standardization role that reaches far beyond security. A prime example that many of us might find useful is the NIST Big Data interoperability Framework (NBDIF). Built as a vendor-neutral, technology- and infrastructure-independent ecosystem; it can enable Big Data stakeholders (e.g. data scientists, researchers, etc.) to utilize the best available analytics tools to process and derive knowledge through the use of standard interfaces between swappable architectural components. It is a series of 10 NIST Special Publications:
NBDIF V3.0 Final Version
1. NIST SP 1500-1r2 -- Volume 1: Definitions
2. NIST SP 1500-2r2 -- Volume 2: Taxonomies
3. NIST SP 1500-3r2 -- Volume 3: Use Case & Requirements
4. NIST SP 1500-4r2 -- Volume 4: Security and Privacy
5. NIST SP 1500-5 -- Volume 5: Architectures White Paper Survey
6. NIST SP 1500-6r2 -- Volume 6: Reference Architecture
7. NIST SP 1500-7r2 -- Volume 7: Standards Roadmap
8. NIST SP 1500-9r1 -- Volume 8: Reference Architecture Interface
9. NIST SP 1500-10r1 -- Volume 9: Modernization and Adoption
All found at https://bigdatawg.nist.gov/V3_output_docs.php. And as always with everything from NIST (since our tax dollars paid for this), it’s free.
Through the Foreign Affairs IT Fellowship, the U.S. Department of State is seeking to attract top-notch tech talent to the Foreign Service ranks that reflects the diversity of the United States. Women, members of minority groups historically underrepresented in the Foreign Service and students with financial need are encouraged to apply to this challenging and rewarding opportunity. Two ITM students have been selected for this program in the past, Akvile Kisis and Andreas Vassilakos. You can see a video of Akvile’s experiences in this program at https://www.faitfellowship.org/videos/akvile-travel-make-a-global-impact-and-have-a-unique-it-job/ . We are pleased to be one of only two institutions that has had more than one student selected for this program, and they are certainly looking for more from us. The program pays for the last two years of undergraduate education or for graduate education in information technology, with a stipend and two summer internships. Students completing the program serve for five years as Foreign Service Specialists in the U.S. State Department. You must be a U.S. citizen to apply, and applications are due February 15, 2020 update: midnight February 14, 2020. Full details can be found at https://www.faitfellowship.org/ and the application is at https://www.faitfellowship.org/how-to-apply/ . Andreas has generously offered to assist students in completing the application; you can contact him at avassilakos@hawk.iit.edu.
The U.S. Department of Defense is offering Cyber Scholarships to U.S. citizens who will be Juniors, Seniors, or graduate students in the fall of 2019. Because we are a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education, you may be eligible to apply. This is a one-year scholarship covering full books, tuition, and a $25,000 stipend for undergraduates or a $30,000 stipend for graduate students. The scholarships are renewable but require a new application each year. After graduation, scholarship recipients will work one year of federal service in a cyber security or digital forensics role for each year of scholarship support, or four years of military service. Applicants must be eligible for a security clearance. Applicants are not limited to students in the Department of Information Technology and Management but may also be students in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Business, but because of the nature of the application, knowledge of and a clear understanding of cyber security is a necessity. Please read the scholarship details document carefully and completely before filling out the application. An official transcript must accompany your application and should be attached, unopened, to the application. A complete printed and signed physical application must be delivered to the ITM Department office, Perlstein Hall suite 223 no later than 8:30am Monday February 17th so we can evaluate and include your scholarship in our funding request, which is due February 28th. When you submit your physical application, you will be given instructions for uploading a digital copy of your application in PDF format. Multiple files may be submitted as a .zip file but all files must be PDF files.
The application and full details of the scholarship are included below.
If you have read all of the materials and you still have questions, please contact Professor Ray Trygstad at trygstad@iit.edu. Please include “DOD Cyber Scholarship” as the first thing in the subject line of your email.
