Dr. Rick Forno, Graduate Cybersecurity Program Director and Assistant Director of UMBC's Center for Cybersecurity, has received a $45,000 grant from the National Security Agency (NSA) to fund the prizes for student winners at the 2015 Maryland Cyber Challenge (MDC3) finals taking place at the CyberMaryland 2015 conference in Baltimore on October 28-29.
The Maryland Cyber Challenge builds excitement around cybersecurity education and careers by bringing together teams of students and cybersecurity professionals to compete in a series of increasingly complex cybersecurity challenges. Now in its 5th year, over 800 student competitors have participated in this regional cybersecurity competition, with NSA providing more than $330,000 in prize money.
For 2015, each member of the first-place student team will receive $2,500 and each member of the second-place team will receive $1,250 to contribute toward their higher education and training in the cybersecurity and computer science fields. Identical prizes are awarded both in the high school and college divisions.
Dr. Forno and UMBC are co-founders of MDC3, along with Leidos and the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED). For the first four years of the event, Dr. Forno served as the competition coordinator and GameMaster, but transitioned into an advisory role for 2015 and beyond.
Interested? Register a team for MDC3 or join the CyberDawgs to train and compete – they've got two teams already registered!