Graduate, undergraduate, and women’s scholarships are offered by the Center for Cyber Safety and Education of the International Information System Security Certification Consortium (ISC)². They will begin accepting applications on February 28, 2017 for graduate and undergraduate scholarships of up to $5,000, and are currently accepting applications for women’s scholarships of $8,000 or more. One undergraduate student may also be selected for the Harold F. Tipton Memorial Scholarship; the most recent award recipient for this scholarship is Kyle Dean Murbach from Wheaton, IL. Please see the (ISC)² scholarship page at https://www.isc2cares.org/Scholarships/ for full details.

ITM is happy to be in Boston! In the photo at right, Master of Cyber Forensics and Security alumnus Anthony Ramirez receives the Best Paper Award for the 2016 ACM Research in Information Technology (RIIT) conference in Boston. Anthony and Alfedo Fernandez earned this award for their paper MP3 Stegonography: Analyzing and Detecting TCSteg. This is the third time in five years that Illinois Tech Information Technology and Management researchers have received this award. The School of Applied Technology and the ITM Department are Silver Sponsors for the RIIT conference and the concurrent ACM Special Interest Group in Information Technology Education (SIGITE) conference. ITM Associate Chair Ray Trygstad serves on the SIGITE Executive Committee.

The Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS) 2017 conference will be held in Tucson, AZ on March 31st-April 1st. Scholarships are available for both faculty and students to attend the conference (details at ; in the past these scholarships, funded by NSF, have covered airfare and lodging. Student and faculty scholarship applications are now open through November 21st. Notifications will go out December 5th. Conference registration costs are nominal–$30 for students, $150 for faculty.

The Call for Participation for Presentations, Workshops, Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF) Sessions, Lightning Talks, Panels, and Posters is open, and submissions will be accepted until November 6 (details at https://www.csc.tntech.edu/wicys/participate/)

All ITM women enrolled in Cyber Forensics and Security, and all third- and fourth-year undergraduate women, are strongly encouraged to participate—lightning talks and posters are easy and can be drawn from work already done—and to apply for these scholarships.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency have designated Illinois Institute of Technology as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education, effective until 2020. Our ability to meet the increasing demands of the program criteria will serve the nation well in contributing to the protection of the National Information Infrastructure. The Presidents’ National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, February 2003, and the International Strategy for Cyberspace, May 2011, addresses the critical shortage of professionals with these skills and highlights the importance of higher education as a solution to defending America’s cyberspace: “Like all nations, the United States has a compelling interest in defending its vital national assets, as well as our core principles and values, and we are committed to defending against those who would attempt to impede our ability to do so.” Education is the key to promoting these ideals.

This designation recognizes the accomplishments of IIT in the areas of cyber security and digital forensics education, spearheaded by the Department of Information Technology and Management (ITM) and the IIT Center for Cyber Security and Forensics Education (C²SAFE). The ITM Department’s key offering in this area is the Master of Cyber Forensics and Security degree, designed to help students, and experienced information technology professionals become cyber security and forensics practitioners, investigators, managers, and leaders. This degree is intended for students who are interested in cyber security, digital forensics, risk control, and information assurance, and draws on the extensive professional experience of our ITM faculty.

The Center of Academic Excellence (CAE) in Cyber Defense (CD) designation is a new designation based on updated academic criteria for Cybersecurity education and affords each CAE institution the opportunity to distinguish its strengths in specific focus areas. The updated criteria benefit not only the institution, but also students, employers and hiring managers throughout the Nation.

Official letters of notification of IIT’s designation were sent to the university, the Governor of Illinois, Members of Congress, and appropriate Congressional Committees. The official CAE Certificate will be awarded during a ceremony at the CAE Community Meeting being held in conjunction with the NICE (National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education) Conference in San Diego, California, November 3-4, 2015.

CBS Chicago Channel 2 News (WBBM) interviewed ITM Professor Louis McHugh for a story “ATM App Is Convenient, But Is It Secure?” about the security of ATM applications for mobile devices.

See the video

Ray Trygstad, ITM Associate Chair, Director of IT and Industry Professor, appeared on WGN News on Thursday, December 18. Professor Trygstad was interviewed for a story on the Sony Pictures cyber attack and the precedent they set by pulling the movie “The Interview.”

See the video (Professor Trygstad appears at the 1:41 mark)

IIT undergraduate Information Technology and Management (ITM) student Eric Tendian competed in the Cyber Aces State Championship offered by the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES). The competition featured the top 125 participants from a year-long competition led by Gov. Pat Quinn to identify individuals with skills conducive to seeking a cybersecurity career in the military or private sector.

The competition included NetWars, a simulation utilized by the U.S. Air Force, and a discussion of ethics. NetWars covers topics including system hardening, packet analysis, digital forensics, and vulnerability assessment. The ethics panel consisted of two cybersecurity professionals and one FBI agent in the cyber division, and was facilitated by a former White House-level IT manager.

Eric won two awards in the NetWars tournament – he scored 2nd Overall and was the first to advance to Level 2. Eric was among only 3 participants in the Illinois competition to make it to Level 3 and was the only non-professional to finish in the top 3. Even more impressive is that Eric is a first-year IIT student.

Bill Slater, Adjunct Industry Professor of Information Technology and Management, encouraged Eric to participate in the competition because of his strong cyber security skills. Professor Slater stated “it is impressive that one of our IIT ITM undergraduate students placed 2nd in the state. Especially since Eric competed against cyber security professionals and students with more years of cyber security experience.”

Eric was featured as a 2013 Fifty For The Future award winner from the Illinois Technology Foundation that recognizes 50 of the brightest technology students in Illinois.
Several other IIT students participated in the competition. See the complete results of the Cyber Aces Online course, the precursor to NetWars, at https://online.cyberaces.org/event/results/2013Fall/0?state=IL&regtype=College.

Registration for the next round of Cyber Aces Online opens August 1st.

More info on the championship can be found at http://www.cyberaces.org/championships/ and http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/suburbs/palos/chi-illinois-hacking-competition-draws-cybersecurity-sleuths-of-tomorrow-20140302,0,4349193.story.

The news media was giving great play today to a “cyber attack” on the White House, which “penetrated a secure area.” The nature of this nefarious, newsworthy attack? ONE spearphishing email with a malware attachment. An attachment which, by the way, was never opened. Can we say “overreaction”, boys and girls?
• Original alarmist article: http://freebeacon.com/white-house-hack-attack/
• Article debunking the media reaction: http://www.geekosystem.com/white-house-cyberattack-email/

Illinois Institute of Technology Announces Master’s Degree in Cyber Forensics and Security
New Program Combines Technical, Legal, Policy and Compliance
In 2011, the average organizational cost of a data security breach in the U.S. was $5.5 million according to a report from Symantec and the Ponemon Institute. Cyber forensics continues to be used to recover evidence from security breaches. Cyber security and forensics issues have become increasingly complicated with technical, legal, policy, and compliance issues, and with such astronomical costs, there is a critical need in both the government and private sectors for professionals equipped to prevent, counteract and investigate cyber terrorism, cybercrimes and information security breaches.

To address these issues, Illinois Institute of Technology’s School of Applied Technology is offering a Master of Cyber Forensics and Security degree and graduate certificate programs in cyber security management and cyber security technologies, starting in fall of 2012. The program integrates legal courses from IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law curriculum and technical and managerial courses from IIT School of Applied Technology’s information technology and management curriculum. The program provides cyber security and forensics practitioners a thorough grounding in technology, legal issues, policy and compliance, providing an outstanding curriculum for those interested in cyber forensics and security and is a substantive follow-up degree for undergraduates majoring in information technology and management, computer science, computer information systems, or computer engineering.

The mission of the cyber forensics and security programs is to prepare students to assume technical and managerial leadership in information technology and cyber security. With a hands-on, reality-based approach to education, the cyber forensics and security program allows students to apply what they learn in class to solve real-life problems. Additional courses may be taken from the IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law curriculum to give cyber security and forensics practitioners a thorough grounding in legal issues and compliance.

“The program provides an innovative experience where cyber forensics and security students work on cutting-edge, industry-sponsored projects that deal with technical, legal, policy and compliance,” said IIT School of Applied Technology Dean Robert Carlson. “This teaching philosophy prepares students to become innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders of the future.”

Recognized by industry professionals as a premier curriculum, IIT’s Cyber Forensics and Security (ForSec) programs are project-based and students are immersed in solving real problems, using current technologies and industry practices, while being guided by experienced faculty.

“In the IIT ForSec Lab, students use real computer viruses to learn and experience how they work, and also devise methods for protection of computers and mobile devices,” explains Professor Bill Lidinsky, director of security and forensics. “In cyber forensics, students learn how to accurately and legally access and analyze computers and cell phones, searching for evidence such as hidden and deleted files, email sent and received and web pages visited.” Students also do cutting edge research and present findings to their peers and leading professionals in their fields. This approach provides students with relevant experience — publishing and presenting at conferences, in some cases for government organizations such as the FBI.

For additional information regarding the Cyber Forensics and Security programs please visit www.itm.iit.edu/cybersecurity.

To help launch the program, Illinois Institute of Technology is hosted ForenSecure: the IIT Cyber Forensics and Security Conference on April 19 and 20. The conference had speakers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Chief Cyber Security Advisor from the Illinois Terrorism Task Force. For additional information about the conference please visit www.cpd.iit.edu/forensecure.

About IIT
Founded in 1890, IIT is a Ph.D.-granting university with more than 7,700 students in engineering, sciences, architecture, psychology, design, humanities, business and law. IIT’s interprofessional, technology-focused curriculum is designed to advance knowledge through research and scholarship, to cultivate invention improving the human condition, and to prepare students from throughout the world for a life of professional achievement, service to society, and individual fulfillment. Visit www.iit.edu.