UMIACS, MC2 Directors and Faculty Named to President’s Cybersecurity Task Force

Amitabh Varshney, director of the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS), and Jonathan Katz, director of the Maryland Cybersecurity Center (MC2), are part of a just-announced President’s Task Force on Cybersecurity established in response to the recent UMD data breach.

The 18-member task force—led by Interim Vice President and CIO Ann Wylie—is charged with conducting a thorough examination of the university’s sensitive data infrastructure, followed by recommendations on possible additions or changes to current UMD technical and policy protocols.

Other UMIACS and MC2 faculty on the task force include Michael Hicks, professor of computer science, Michel Cukier, associate professor of reliability engineering and associate director of education in MC2, and David Maimon, assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice.

Varshney is an expert in high performance visual computing as it relates to big data; Katz specializes in cryptography; Hicks’s research focuses on software security; Cukier is an expert on intrusion detection; and Maimon is an expert on behavioral and social aspects of cyber criminals.