Student Program at the 2019 NSF Cybersecurity Summit

In October we hosted our annual NSF Cybersecurity Summit for Large Facilities and Cyberinfrastructure in San Diego, CA. The Summit included training workshops, plenary talks, and networking opportunities for members of NSF Large Facilities and the CI community.

As Summit attendance and funding grows so has our ability to provide learning opportunities for new members to the community. Two years ago we launched a student scholarship program to follow through on our goals of outreach and broadening impact. Students apply to the program by writing a brief essay sharing their security interests and what they hope to gain from attending the Summit.

This year we were able to fund the attendance of ten students to the Summit. Their names and schools they attend are listed below (see: photo, left to right):

• Emma He - MS Computer Science - University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Shuvra Chakraborty - PhD Computer Science - University of Texas San Antonio
• Merlin Cherian - BS/MS Computer Science - Drexel University
• Cameron Ogle - Bachelor Computer Science - Clemson University
• Minh Nguyen - PhD Student Computer Science - CUNY
• Alexis Reyes - MS Software in Software Engineering - University of Texas at El Paso
• Desiree Lester - Bachelor Information Assurance - Norfolk State University
• Tre' Jeter - Bachelor Computer Science, Bachelor Computer Engineering - Claflin University
• Roncs Etame-Ese - BS Information Technology - Marymount University
• Luis Gonzalez - BS Information Technology - Florida International University

We also paired the students with volunteer mentors (two students per mentor). We thank them for helping make the students feel welcome at the Summit. Their names and organizations are listed below:

• Florence Hudson; Trusted CI
• Steve Barnet; Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center
• Susan Ramsey; Amazon
• Celeste Matarazzo; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
• David Halstead; National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO)

We asked the students to share some insights into their Summit experience. We list a selection of their statements below.

Shuvra Chakraborty

As a doctoral student, my research works focus on the investigation of novel access control methodologies; development and deployment. I have attended a couple of conferences before: this Summit was a bit different for me. Apart from the usual knowledge hunting, I have got great networking opportunities here. I would specifically mention my colleagues in the student programs and mentors. My mentor was superb: I felt really inspired after meeting her. I liked the training program most: the hands-on training was useful and informative.

Cameron Ogle

By far my favorite thing from the Summit, was the chance to interact with others who share the same passion for technology and learning. I gained some of the most valuable information from speaking with the attending industry experts. I especially appreciated the advice the mentors offered in finding a career and what lessons they had to share. The other students were a blast to explore San Diego with, and I can’t wait until we have the chance to lead the cybersecurity field.

Desiree Lester

The student program was very informative. It exposed all the students to industry work, lab, and research projects. It showed me that the industry it not all about coding, but about fixing a bigger problem. It was about networking with people from all over the world and learning from their experiences. After hearing stories, I have considered applying to a fellowship program. I just would like to that TrustedCI for this amazing opportunity and hope to network in the future.

Tre' Jeter

For me, I learned so much! I got actual experience with security tools in a real world setting in the Web Security Automated Assessment Tools session. I enjoyed speaking further with Dr. Miller about graduate school and I actually scheduled a visit to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Furthermore, I appreciated being treated like a professional in the field although I am still a student. Being asked the difficult questions and being forced to put things into the perspective of a real world event on the spot was intriguing, challenging, and inspiring. It also showed me that I have much to learn in every aspect of this field! I am much more confident in my degree choices now because I attended this summit and got real feedback and honesty when it came to me asking the right questions, giving the right answers, and even thinking in the correct way in order to be successful in this field. Everything I wanted to get out of this summit was achieved!

Roncs Etame-Ese

This year’s conference was a memorable experience for me as it was my first time out on the West Coast. Prior to arriving at the conference, the thing I was looking forward to the most was meeting other students. The new friendships I made and the bond we all established in that week, are memories that I can never forget. They were all incredibly smart and I was pretty impressed by their academic, professional, and extracurricular achievements. I’m looking forward to all of us succeeding in our endeavors and being the next generation of cybersecurity professionals.

Luis Gonzalez

Being able to attend this summit was a wonderful experience and I would recommend any student interested in Cyber Security to attend. The staff at IU and Trusted CI were very welcoming and gracious. Along with being wonderful to me, they were extremely organized and punctual throughout the summit. You will be able to network with many research individuals in the cybersecurity field. The training session was only 3.5 hours. long each but the presenters did a great job of overloading us with great information and allowing us to do many hands-on exercises in the process. If you have the opportunity to attend this event. I greatly encourage it.

We were more than impressed with the Student Program this year. Their participation and enthusiasm was a rewarding affirmation of our commitment to community building. We look forward to seeing where their careers take them and sponsoring more students in the future.

The students and mentors

Remembering Steve Tuecke’s contributions to cybersecurity

I am deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Steve Tuecke last weekend. Steve was a passionate leader in the application of technology to advance science as well as being a great mentor to me during the three years I worked as part of the Globus project and since. While Steve’s contributions to scientific computing and data management are wide-ranging, I worked most closely with him on the topics of cybersecurity and identity management. This post is to remember and reflect on his work in those areas that was foundational to much of cybersecurity in scientific computing today.

When I first met Steve in the late 1990s, he was a driving force behind establishing a flexible security architecture to support distributed science. His ability to grasp the needs for delegating authority and secure communications amongst researchers and infrastructure (fairly novel concepts in those days where the world wide web was just getting started) and his acumen in systems design and software engineering immediately attracted me to him as someone from whom I was eager to learn.

The first project Steve drew me into was solving the challenge of how a researcher delegated credentials to web servers, an unknown concept in the simple client-server model of the web at that time. This original work became MyProxy, a workhorse for credential management in scientific computing to this day, and which led to the important CILogon infrastructure.

I joined the Globus project shortly after and under Steve’s mentorship started working on standardizing Proxy Certificates and developing their implementation in the very nascent Grid Security Infrastructure (GSI). During this period, Steve taught me much about software development and architecture (I will always associate the term “idempotent” with Steve), the role of standards, building  communities, and leadership.

Since my days with Globus, I continued to admire Steve’s leadership in developing Globus Auth, allowing researchers to manage their multiple identities at different sites and services. I enjoyed numerous conversations with Steve on that identity work as well as other topics such as software sustainability. He was a great mentor and friend and will be missed.

Von Welch, Trusted CI Director

The Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC): Implications for Contracting with the Department of Defense

One of the current trends for research organizations is the increasingly prominent role of privacy and cybersecurity compliance regimes, such as NIST 800-171, HIPAA, and GDPR. Historically, these compliance regimes have focused on regulated types of data: CUI, PHI, PII, etc. However, recently the Department of Defense (DoD) has signaled a shift away from these data-specific regulations, and towards a compliance regime that sets requirements for every organization that contracts with them, regardless of data. This new compliance regime, the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), is slated to begin as soon as Fall 2020, meaning that organizations that intend to be compliant will want to begin preparing almost immediately.

2019 NSF Cybersecurity Summit wrap-up: Strength in Numbers

The 2019 NSF Cybersecurity Summit for Large Facilities and Cyberinfrastructure was a resounding success. Presentations have been posted to our website, more will be added as they become available.

Our attendance this year was 143, up from 117 attending last year. Presentation proposals saw an increase as well this year, which allowed us to offer a greater variety of trainings and topics. And, our student program had a significant increase in applications; prompting us to include 10 students, up from 6 students last year. In 2019 we launched our new Fellows program and the Cybersecurity Technology Transition to Practice (TTP) program, both of which were included in the Summit agenda of presentations.

Each year we write a report of the Summit, the highlights, and its findings. We are in the process of drafting the 2019 report and will post it soon.

We thank all the presenters, trainers, attendees, students, Fellows, and the event coordinators who helped make this our most successful Summit to date. And finally, we thank the NSF for their support of Trusted CI and our mission to lead in the development of a cybersecurity ecosystem.

PSC Updates

Shane, Kathy, and Andrew at the 2019 NSF Cybersecurity Summit

Following Jim Marsteller's departure from Trusted CI, we are pleased to welcome two new Trusted CI team members from the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center. Kathy Benninger, PSC's Manager of Networking Research, is our new lead for the Large Facilities Security Team (LFST) and is Trusted CI's new site lead for PSC. Kathy is already actively engaged with Trusted CI leadership and planning for 2020. We also look forward to January when Shane Filus, PSC Security Engineer, will join the Trusted CI team. Kathy and Shane both strengthen our connections to XSEDE.

Lastly, we are grateful for the continued participation in Trusted CI by PSC's Andrew Adams, who is taking on the role of Trusted CI's Chief Information Security Officer (CISO).

Trusted CI Webinar October 28th at 11am ET: Trends in Global Privacy: GDPR One Year Later with Scott Russell

CACR's Scott Russell is presenting the talk, "Trends in Global Privacy: GDPR One Year Later" on October 28th at 11am (Eastern).

Please register here. Be sure to check spam/junk folder for registration confirmation email.

The past few years have seen a resurgence of privacy laws around the globe, starting with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), but leading to proposed laws in South Korea, Brazil, and the United States. These numerous laws may be targeted at enhancing privacy, but their biggest effect has been as a source of fear and confusion for those who are being regulated. This talk will build upon last year’s GDPR webinar, introduce CCPA, and then go on to discuss trends in global privacy more broadly: what’s happening, what’s coming, and what should you do about it.

Scott Russell is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Indiana University Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research (CACR), where his work focuses on privacy and cybersecurity policy. A lawyer and researcher, Scott received his B.A. in Computer Science and History from the University of Virginia, received his J.D. from Indiana University, interned at MITRE, and served as a postdoctoral fellow at CACR.

Join Trusted CI's announcements mailing list for information about upcoming events. To submit topics or requests to present, see our call for presentations. Archived presentations are available on our site under "Past Events."

Trusted CI at SFSCon 2019

Group Photo of SFSCon 2019 Participants

On September 27-29, Trusted CI participated in SFSCon 2019, the third annual cybersecurity training and professional development event at Cal Poly Pomona (CPP) for the CyberCorps Scholarship for Service (SFS) students and alumni nationwide. 105 student attendees traveled to California from 42 universities across the country for this event organized by CPP Professor Mohammad Husain. In 2017, Trusted CI helped organize the CPP-CTSC SFS Cyberinfrastructure Security Workshop, the first event in this SFSCon series.

This year, Trusted CI's Barton P. Miller and Elisa Heymann provided a Software Assurance training for the students, and Trusted CI's Jim Basney and John Zage provided an Identity and Access Management training. Ishan Abhinit and Zalak Shah (CACR) also provided a Security Log Analysis training, using training materials developed by Trusted CI.

From 45 student attendees in 2017 to 105 student attendees in 2019, SFSCon is a growing success. It’s great to see the SFS program supporting the development of the next generation cybersecurity workforce. Trusted CI is proud to have the Cal Poly Pomona Scholarship for Service project as one of our partners.