Cybersecurity is one of UMBC’s strategic priorities — and we possess broad institutional capabilities and expertise in this dynamic and interdisciplinary field. Our interests and capabilities in cybersecurity are not just technical, but include the social behavioral and economic elements of cybersecurity as well.
UMBC’s Center for Cybersecurity (UCYBR) provides unifed academic and research leadership, partnership, innovation, and outreach in this critical discipline by streamlining our academic, research, workforce development, and technology incubation activities.
UCYBR leadership and UMBC’s cybersecurity faculty are actively engaged with government, industry, and academic organizations and individuals and remain fully informed on the current state of cybersecurity education, research, and operational workforce issues related to the cyber domain. For external advice, UCYBR draws upon the CSEE industrial advisory board which includes senior and executive cybersecurity expertise; to respect participants time, UCYBR does not maintain a separate external advisory board.
Cybersecurity Vision & Goals
UMBC’s cybersecurity vision, informed by collaborative real-world perspectives, acknowledges that effective cybersecurity requires both successful technical competence and an understanding of how human factors such as policy, user experiences, and operational processes are intertwined with cybersecurity outcomes. Accordingly, our approach to cybersecurity is based upon four pillars:
- Education: Providing quality undergraduate and graduate education and workforce development in cybersecurity-related fields through interdisciplinary academic and non-credit training programs that are rooted in academically evaluated and industry accepted best practices.
- Research: Conducting innovative, interdisciplinary, and collaborative inquiry into cybersecurity and cybersecurity-related issues from both the technical and social science perspectives.
- Entrepreneurship: Working with industry locally and around the world to incubate and grow new cybersecurity companies offering innovative products and services and transferring our intellectual capital from university research into practice.
- Partnership: Engaging in proactive, innovative collaborations and synergistic activities with industry, academia, and government entities that lead to mutually beneficial outcomes across the educational, research, and entrepreneurial spectrum both locally and globally.
UCYBR draws upon UMBC’s many interdisciplinary strengths and forward-thinking activities to streamle our academic, research, workforce development, and technology incubation activities to advance UMBC’s position as a leading research university in cybersecurity-related disciplines. Through UCYBR, UMBC is one of the few universities in the nation designated both a Center of Excellence in Cyber Defense (CAE-CD) and Cyber Research (CAE-R) by the National Security Agency and been a prominent NSF Federal CyberCorps/SFS participant since 2012.