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WELLESLEY HILLS (November 2, 2016) — MassBay Community College is pleased to announce that Cyber Security major Andrew Liberatore of Franklin is the only community college student this year to have his cyber project selected to present at The Annual Massachusetts Cybersecurity 2.0 Conference for the Advanced Cyber Security Center (ACSC) in Boston on Thursday, November 3, 2016. As part of this annual conference, ten students from the New England region are selected to present their research projects to the more than 200 conference attendees showcasing their work that addresses or represents a critical need in the field, an innovative approach and has a good chance for implementation.
Liberatore’s project “Raspberry Pi Network for Cybersecurity On-the-Go” was nominated by MassBay professors Shamsi Moussavi and Giuseppe Sena. This project uses Raspberry Pis, which is a small credit card size computer with an operating system that was capable of performing all tasks as a normal size computer. Using the capabilities of a Raspberry Pi, Liberatore researched the possibilities of using this to demonstrate networking and security concepts to high school and college students to use as an educational teaching tool and receive feedback from students. This project was designed and planned with a series of simple to medium level networking and security labs that could run on a very simple, cost effective and transportable network of Raspberry Pi.
“There are very strong indicators that in the 21st century, the cyber security field will be growing by leaps and bounds and individuals who have earned credentials in the growing field of cyber security will continue to be in high demand,” said MassBay Dean of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Division Chitra Javdekar. “MassBay’s new cyber security Associate of Science degree program is filling the critical need for well-rounded cyber security technicians in Massachusetts and is already attracting talented, hard-working individuals like Andrew Liberatore. We are extremely proud of Andrew, who has shown immense potential for innovation.”
The Advanced Cyber Security Center reached out and requested nominations for student cyber projects to 40 New England colleges and universities that have cyber security programs.
They received 19 submissions that were reviewed by an ACSC committee and the top ten projects were chosen from UMass Amherst, UMass Dartmouth, UMass Lowell, Northeastern University, Boston University and MassBay Community College. According to their website, “This is a unique opportunity for the next generation of cyber experts to showcase their work and to provide industry and opportunity to identify and meet top talent in the field and view cutting-edge projects to meet their cyber challenges.” The ACSC works to develop solutions to cybersecurity challenges through collaborations between industry partners and New England universities (Harvard, MIT, Northeastern University, University of Massachusetts and Worcester Polytechnic Institute).
“Massachusetts’ depth in higher education is a great advantage for the cybersecurity sector, and the new ideas for research emanating from local colleges will be an exciting part of our conference,” said ACSC Chairman William Guenther.
The Massachusetts Cybersecurity 2.0 conference is this year focused on “preparing for the next wave of cyber challenges” and attendees are a select group of cyber security thought leaders, executives and professionals, IT professionals, cyber security experts and business leaders.
In September 2016 MassBay Community College announced a new Cyber Security Associate of Science degree program, the only 2-year Cyber Security program in the Commonwealth that is not designed as a concentration of another field such as computer science. The College is part of the Department of Higher Education funded Cyber Security project that is tasked with establishing transfer pathways for Cyber Security programs with 4-years public institutions in the state. MassBay also offers a very popular sixteen credit Cyber Security certificate program.
For more information on MassBay’s STEM Division; www.massbay.edu/stem.
For more information on the ASCS Massachusetts Cybersecurity 2.0