About a decade ago, I was looking to expand my involvement in cybersecurity beyond the Navy and came across a teaching opportunity for University of Maryland University College (UMUC). I tried my hand at it and quickly realized that I love teaching and have been an Adjunct Associate Professor for UMUC’s undergraduate school ever since.
Shortly after I began teaching, I learned of a small organization called CyberWATCH, which previously stood for Cyber Washington Area Technician and Consortium Headquarters. It started with a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to establish an academia, government, and industry consortium in the Maryland/Virginia/Washington DC area focused on building and maintaining a stronger cybersecurity (or back then “information assurance”) workforce. It had great resources for both faculty and students. Of most benefit to me personally was being reimbursed for classes I was taking at George Mason University towards a PhD (which sadly I never finished).
Over the years, CyberWATCH has grown significantly and is now the National CyberWatch Center. As the name change implies, it now has a national scope focusing on cybersecurity education and the cybersecurity workforce. Its members, partners, and supporters have grown as well. I’m posting about the National CyberWatch Center because in every class I’ve taught at UMUC, the majority of students were military personnel from across all the Services or government civilians. While the Center focuses on resources for students and faculty, many are available and beneficial for those not enrolled as students.
The Center provides model cybersecurity curricula, produces a Digital Press that collects relevant e-books and white papers, maintains a robust Library of cybersecurity resources, publishes the Communicator containing recent cybersecurity news, and conducts regular educational Webinars. And these are just a few of their smaller offerings.
They may best be known for sponsoring the Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (MACCDC). Started in 2006 with five teams competing, it has grown to over 30 teams and 300 students competing in a fun and challenging environment where they must synthesize and integrate their cybersecurity knowledge in order to succeed. MACCDC developers do a great job changing the scenarios each year, with more recent ones involving mass transportation, disaster management, and the first democratic election for the country of Hackistan. There are a number of notable partners and supporters from government agencies (e.g. NSA, FBI, DHS), industry titans (e.g. Microsoft, Raytheon, Northrup Grumman), military (e.g. 780th MI BDE (Cyber)), and others. Many of these partners recruit student competitors for employment during the job fair held at MACCDC. One very cool aspect of the competition is the ability for Joe Public to attend and observe the Regional Finals, held at John Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. This year the Regional Finals are March 31 through April 2, 2016. If you are interested in competing, volunteering, or visiting, contact MACCDC.
Another competitive environment that the National CyberWatch Center supports that allows individuals to exercise and test their cybersecurity skills is the National Cyber League (NCL). NCL provides a “virtual training ground” (run from a cloud platform) using Capture-the-Flag style games throughout a “season” that is organized into preseason, regular season, and postseason.
Formed very recently, the last resource I will mention is the National Cybersecurity Student Association (NCSA), which bills itself as the “nation’s largest association of cybersecurity students.”
The National Cybersecurity Student Association is a one-stop-shop to enhance the educational and professional development of cybersecurity students through activities, networking and collaboration. This group supports the cybersecurity educational programs of academic institutions, inspires career awareness and encourages creative efforts to increase the number of underrepresented populations in the field.
The bottom line is I encourage you to check out the wealth of cybersecurity resources provided by the National CyberWatch Center, particularly if you are a cybersecurity student.
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