Titled “Enhancing Cybersecurity Education through AI-Integrated Curriculum Development for Faculty,” the year-long grant will fund the creation of 10 teaching modules that will be used by other institutions that teach cybersecurity.

Thaier Hayajneh, Ph.D., director of the Fordham Center for Cybersecurity, said that he and Gary Weiss, Ph.D., professor of computer and information science, will work with academics from other universities and private sector experts to create the coursework. They will hold workshops over the next year to solicit feedback and finish in the fall of 2025.

Threat Detection and Response

Hayajneh said a key focus of this new curriculum will be employing AI for rapid threat detection and response.

“What people in the industry are trying to do with AI is automate most of those things that we used to do manually,” Hayajneh said. 

“The readings, the observations, the analytics that we always have been doing—everything has AI being integrated into it,” he said.

“There is now AI-enhanced intrusion detection network security that’s used as a defense. But hackers also use AI to crack passwords and search for vulnerabilities in your system faster than before, so you have to test your systems with traditional attack capabilities but also with AI.”

Teaching the Teachers

The team’s recommended curriculum will be shared with the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Defense for feedback, and the NSA will then make it available to eligible institutions through its digital library. 

“The curriculum is designed for faculty from other institutions, with the goal of bridging the gap between institutions that don’t have the expertise and the capability to develop AI-related cybersecurity courses,” Hayajneh said.

 “The ultimate goal is to teach the teachers.”

The grant is the fourth one of this type that the center has received. In 2017, it was awarded two grants worth $270,000 to develop a cybersecurity core curriculum and help build hands-on lab environments for cybersecurity training. In 2019, it received $300,000 to create a curriculum related to iOS and Android operating systems.

Scholarship Eligibility

Thaier Hayajneh, Ph.D., director of the Center for Cybersecurity, said that the Center of Academic Excellence (CAE) designation for the minor means that undergraduates can apply for scholarships that are funded by certain grants, such as a $4.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) the center received in 2022.

That grant money was previously only available to students enrolled in one of the four master’s level cybersecurity degrees the department offers, including undergraduate students enrolled in an accelerated five-year program.

Undergraduates in the cybersecurity minor—open to students in all of Fordham’s undergraduate colleges—can now apply for DoD Cyber Scholarships to offset their tuition. Those who accept scholarships make a commitment to work for at least two to three years for a federal agency such as the National Security Agency.

More Job Opportunities

Upon graduation, students in the minor can expect that job opportunities will expand as well. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, there are currently about 3.4 million unfilled jobs in cybersecurity globally, including an estimated 640,000 in the United States. Many of those jobs are only open to graduates from CAE-designated programs.

“All of these federal agencies, like the NSA, the FBI, and the CIA, have special career fairs that are only for CAE-CD accredited programs, so that will give students more opportunities,” said Hayajneh.

“Employers in the private sector will also have more confidence in our graduates when they know that our students have been through a C-designated program. So it’s an exciting opportunity.”

Once the exclusive domain of Hollywood thrillers, cyber crime is now a regular part of daily life in an increasingly online world. As a result, cybersecurity specialists are needed now more than ever to help organizations protect sensitive data and systems from adversaries working to compromise them.

But according to top leaders in the field, there are not enough trained professionals to meet that need. There are currently about 3.5 million unfilled jobs in cybersecurity globally, including an estimated 750,000 in the United States.

“We still struggle with talent,” Rich Baich, chief information security officer for AT&T, said at the International Conference for Cyber Security (ICCS) held at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus on Jan. 10. Baich spoke alongside chief information officers from organizations such as Yahoo and Google about the growing challenges of staying ahead of evolving threats.

“We need more cyber operators and cyber professionals with operational experience—where they’ve been into battle with an adversary,” Baich said. “They need that understanding, so that they know how to make those risk-based calls.”

In Fordham Classrooms, Real-World Scenarios

Thaier Hayajneh, Ph.D., the founding director of the Fordham Center for Cybersecurity (FCC) and one of the conference organizers, emphasized that hands-on experience is especially crucial in cybersecurity roles because simple missteps can lead to disastrous consequences.

“Secrets, passwords, social security numbers, medical records—you name it. All this private information could be exposed if someone misses just one command…or forgets to close one loop,” he said. “Experts are hard to find, so we [at FCC]  are filling that gap.”

The center’s offerings include three master’s degree programs, an advanced certificate, and an undergraduate minor. All of them aim to prepare students through what Hayajneh calls a “competency-based model,” emphasizing equal parts theory and practical experience.

For example, students participate in cyber competitions such as digital “capture the flag” simulations, where they are tasked with stepping into the shoes of hackers to learn their methods from the inside out.

“These are very important components of cybersecurity. We expose the students to real-world scenarios,” Hayajneh said.

The growing need for positions requiring this type of training and experience means there’s no shortage of options for students entering the market.

“All of our graduates secure jobs because there is a big demand for cyber, but also for the quality of students we produce,” Hayajneh said.

Critical Partnerships

Designated in 2017 as a Center for Excellence in Cyber Security by the NSA and Department of Homeland Security, Fordham maintains strong partnerships with top corporations, as well as federal agencies who provide funding and support for students going into government work.

“We have probably been a funnel of graduates to the bureau for law enforcement for a very long time,” said Fordham President Tania Tetlow in her opening remarks at ICCS. “We teach our students to think really hard about justice and what it means to protect people.”

ICCS, held at Fordham since 2009, serves as a regular meeting point for exchanging knowledge and insights between government and private sectors. For Hayajneh, looping in academic institutions like Fordham is crucial for driving innovation and combating global threats.

“I think it’s key, we need the three elements together,” Hayajneh said. “They must support academic progress because we are the suppliers of future talent and manpower. They have to work in synchronization.”

In a collaboration between the Fordham Center for Cybersecurity, the NYC Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and the NYPD, Chief Ruben Beltran was invited to the Lincoln Center campus on Oct. 19 to speak to aspiring cybersecurity professionals. The commanding officer of the NYPD Information Technology Bureau and founder of the NYPD Real Time Crime Center, Beltran shed light on various aspects of cybersecurity, such as email phishing and key security tools employed by his team, as well as the broader importance of protecting critical information.

Keeping Data Safe

“Right now, a part of our training is how to keep our department assets, data, and computers safe, and also how to keep your own data safe. It’s a little bit different when you’re talking about your personal information on your personal devices,” Beltran said, explaining how vital cybersecurity is at many levels in not only the NYPD, but for every resident of New York City. “I think there’s an opportunity here in terms of creating that awareness for best practices to keep your family’s assets, wealth, and information secure.”

In the landscape of cybersecurity, expertise in business, law, and political science is becoming increasingly critical, he said. In today’s world, effective cybersecurity strategies require cooperation between government agencies, educational institutions, and the private sector, he said, noting that cybersecurity is more than just a lucrative career choice.

Understanding the Need

“It’s cybersecurity—It’s flashy, and a lot of people go into the business thinking that they are going to make a lot of money, and they probably are, especially if they are good at it,” he said. “But, there’s a reason for the need for cybersecurity, and it’s important to know how people get into the business.”

Thaier Hayajneh, a computer science professor and director of the Fordham Center for Cybersecurity, introduced Chief Beltran and also explained how Fordham’s programs align with the demands of the ever-evolving industry.

“One key component of our programs really is [they are truly]interdisciplinary,” he said. “We work across multiple disciplines in business, and law, and political science. We strongly believe that cybersecurity is way beyond just programming and coding and math.”

A Rewarding Career

Reflecting on his own career, Beltran said, “Technology was a passion of mine, and I actually changed my major from criminal justice to computer information systems. But it really did set me up for where I am today.”

He told the students, “It’s important that you know that cybersecurity is going to be a great career; it’s going to be challenging, you’re going to learn a lot, and you’re going to grow.”

The Hollywood version of a hacker who infiltrates a computer system may look like someone hunched over a laptop in a dark remote location.

In fact, according to the FBI, between a quarter and half of all daily cyberthreats come from “insider threats.”

On March 16, law enforcement, private industry, and academic leaders convened at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus for a day devoted exclusively to the challenges of stopping those threats.

The conference, “The Insider Threat: Before, During, and After an Incident,” featured three panel discussions and a “fireside chat” on bringing lawless “dark web” sites to justice.

The half-day event was jointly sponsored by Fordham and the FBI and served as a complement to the larger International Conference on Cyber Security (ICCS), held every 18 months at Fordham. The University also runs a Center for Cybersecurity and offers a master’s program in the subject.

In her welcoming address, Tania Tetlow, president of Fordham, noted that because universities are frequent targets of cyberattacks, they have a vested interest in working to stop them.

“We do it in that way that we’re so proud of in higher ed, and in particular, as a Jesuit institution, by being open to the answers, by constantly trying to challenge ourselves to think differently, to be one step ahead of those very creative enemies that we’re up against,” she said.

The Before

Testing and trust came up repeatedly in the first panel, which featured Dave Fitzgibbons, acting assistant director of the FBI’s Insider Threat Office; Richard Aborn, president of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City; and Chris Farr; executive director of commercial strategy for the strategic intelligence firm Strider.

Aborn said in large organizations, programs that train employees to spot threats are only effective if they’re practiced zealously.

“I think it’s an oxymoron to say you train too much. You have to refresh, you have to train over and over and over again,” he said, noting that his organization had recently sent out test phishing e-mails to its own members.

“We had about a 35% failure rate, and I was pretty shocked at that. We train a lot.”

Behavioral Indicators

Farr said a common misconception is that the first place to start is in the technical realm. In fact, it’s far more important to focus on individuals and have in place a dedicated team to assess behavioral indicators and raise red flags about potential workplace violence, espionage, or fraud. Those indicators might include visits to websites that promote violence, unusual travel patterns, and inexplicable income increases.

The trick is to cultivate a culture of respect where it’s okay to alert a supervisor to a co-worker’s worrisome behavior. It’s tricky, given Americans’ expectations of privacy, but it can be done.

“Employees have to trust your process though,” he said. Programs that have anonymous reporting and policies of no retaliation are super important.”

In the Mix

A key lesson from the second panel, which featured Harold Chun, director of security legal at Google; Darron Smith, insider threat program manager at Bloomberg L.P., and Bill Claycomb, principal researcher at CERT Division’s National Insider Threat Center, was that any insider threat team should also have clear parameters about how to respond.

Is the threat from a full-time employee or a contract one? Is it a one-time issue or an ongoing problem? Is there a threat of physical violence? The response should be commensurate with the problem, said Smith.

“You may not want to raise the fire alarm immediately. It’s really important when you’re thinking about things like duty of care to the employee or privacy,” he said.

Learning from the Past

The final panel featured FBI supervisory special agents Scott Norwell, John Reynolds, and Paul F. Roberts Jr., who specialize in employee, state-sponsored, and white-collar insider threats, respectively. They shared the lessons that have been learned from past cases, such as the 2017 conviction of Kun Shan Chun, a longtime member of the bureau, of passing sensitive information to a Chinese government official.

In that case, Norwell said the bureau had learned that there is a long-term, concerted effort by the Chinese government to identify and recruit people, like Chun, who appear to be vulnerable to flattery, cajoling, or intimidation.

Lessons From the Dark Web

Ed Stroz, GABELLI ’79, co-founder and president of Stroz Friedberg and Fordham trustee, closed the day out with a discussion with Andy Greenberg, senior editor of Wired Magazine and the author of Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency (Penguin RandomHouse, 2022).

Greenberg’s book shows how agents were able to track down the founders of dark web marketplaces such as Silk Road by analyzing Blockchain, the technology that underlies the cryptocurrency that was being used to facilitate the sale of drugs, child pornography, and weapons.

Blockchain was thought by the site administrators to grant them anonymity, but it did not. The path to Silk Road’s demise also included the apprehension of two federal agents who were using the site to commit crimes. One of them was initially accused by an anonymous tipster.

“When people ask about insider programs, it’s easy to think ‘Oh, we’re going to get somebody in trouble,” said Stroz.

“But in many instances, it gets someone out of trouble, or it makes it easier … for people to have a way to raise something so that it can be pursued responsibly. ”

Students Learn from the Pros

Among those in attendance was Jakub Czaplicki, a senior at Fordham College at Lincoln Center working on a five-year, accelerated master’s degree in cybersecurity. He became interested in cybersecurity when he was in middle school, and hopes to join law enforcement after graduation.

He said he enjoyed the case studies in the third panel as well as Greenberg’s talk.

“When the FBI agent was talking about how there is this risk of China and different nation-state actors, it really got me thinking, yeah, we have to secure this. Even though it’s a low percentage, it is a genuine problem for large organizations and the FBI,” he said.

“I learned a lot about cryptocurrency, nation-state actors, and what to look out for.”

Czaplicki was one of six Fordham students who attended, said Thaier Hayajneh, Ph.D., university professor and founder and director of Fordham’s Center for Cybersecurity. Grants that the center won in 2019 from the National Security Agency and the Department of Defense made it possible for them to attend.

“We really want to expose them to the real world and also excite them to work with the executive branches of the federal government,” he said.

“Here, they saw the real cases, and they got to connect the theoretical, the technical, and the practical aspects of cybersecurity.”

The $150,000 grant will fund a camp to be held in July 2023, geared toward students from minority communities in the Bronx.

University Professor Thaier Hayajneh, Ph.D., founding director of Fordham’s Center for Cybersecurity, said the focus of the camp, which will be held in person for the first time, will be on educating students about cryptography and cryptocurrencies.

The previous camp was held virtually and focused on mobile phone security. Because the pandemic made in-person meetings unfeasible, Hayajneh and camp organizers mailed iPhones and Samsung phones to participants and led them through exercises via Zoom sessions. Students were also mailed t-shirts, gift cards, and food vouchers.

“Throughout the camp, we taught them the principles and the basics of cybersecurity in the beginning, and then they practiced those principles and concepts on an actual system—in that case, it was the smartphones. We didn’t want them to ruin their own phones or their parents’ smartphones,” he said.

To make it more enjoyable, organizers encouraged students to make and exchange videos of themselves conducting exercises with the phones they were sent. An agent from the FBI also shared details from a real case involving smartphone security. In surveys conducted at the camp’s conclusion, many students indicated a strong interest in pursuing a career in cybersecurity.

Cryptocurrency: Good Hype and Bad Hype

In focusing on cryptocurrency for next summer’s camp, Hayajneh said the goal is to shine a light on an area that has both tremendous potential and potential risks.

“Even my 8-year-old has asked me about Dogecoin. Kids hear about it from their friends and want to know how they can buy cryptocurrencies. We don’t want teenagers to fall victims to scams and other malicious activities that could target them in the future,” he said.

In addition to teaching students the basics behind Blockchain, the technology that makes cryptocurrency possible through security, transparency, and traceability, instructors will explain how cryptocurrency can be used for nefarious purposes, such as ransom payments.

“There’s good hype and bad hype about cryptocurrencies, so we’ll introduce the students to it, and also make them aware of the value and risks,” he said.

“Unlike banking, where if you make a bad transaction, you can call your bank and tell them it wasn’t what you did, or they made a mistake, with crypto, once a transaction happens, it’s done. You can never reverse that. So that’s one of the scary things about it.”

The second grant for a new session of camp is further validation from the NSA of Fordham’s leadership in the field, Hayajneh said. In 2017, the NSA designated the University a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education (CAE-CDE).

“One of the main goals of Gen Cyber is to increase the interest in cybersecurity, and hopefully many of those kids that are tech-savvy become ethical hackers,” he said.

The grant, “CyberCorps Scholarship for Service: Preparing Future Cybersecurity Professionals with Data Science Expertise,” was announced by the foundation on Jan. 21. It is the largest grant the Center for Cybersecurity has ever received, and is also the largest grant for cybersecurity scholarships that is funded by the federal government, according to center founder and director Thaier Hayajneh, Ph.D. Hayajneh was the principal investigator for the grant, while Gary Weiss, Ph.D., professor of computer and information sciences, was the co-principal investigator.

Recognition of Skills and Quality

“It’s a recognition that we have the ability to produce the graduates who have the skills and the qualities to serve the nation’s needs in cybersecurity,” said Hayajneh, a University Professor in the department of computer and information sciences.

Over the course of the five years, Hayajneh said, the fund is expected to cover the full tuition, health insurance, housing, and related expenses for 44 “student years.” Students can earn scholarships for up three years of study, so an undergraduate could use the funds to cover their third and fourth year of studies and their first year of master’s studies, or their final year of undergraduate studies and two years of a master’s degree. A student who enrolls in the department’s new doctoral program could have their entire three years of study covered by the grant.

A Commitment to Service

The grant is similar to one that the center was awarded in 2020 by the United States Department of Defense. Students who accept the scholarship make a commitment to work for at least two to three years for a federal agency such as the National Security Agency. This grant is larger and more flexible though, as it is not restricted to specific individuals chosen by a government agency.

Fordham is one of eight universities to join the CyberCorps Scholarship for Service program this year, which currently includes 82 universities representing 37 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

Key to the landing the grant, Hayajneh said, was a demonstration of both Fordham’s excellence in the field of cybersecurity and data science and the heartfelt desire of its students to serve the United States, rather than simply parlay their degree into a lucrative career in the private sector. In a 20 minute in-person meeting in November, Fordham was able to show that its graduates have that kind of commitment, and Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, assured grant administrators the same.

Data Science Expertise

Fordham brings to the table unique expertise in both cybersecurity and data science, Hayajneh said, through the department of computer and information sciences and the Gabelli School of Business. Students with experience in data mining and machine learning will be better equipped to work with computer systems that can predict, and not just respond, to security breaches.

“They will not only be able to detect attacks when they occur, but they will also have the ability to predict and prevent attacks before they even occur. This is very important because you want to stop the damage before it even starts,” he said.

“After you assure them that your program is ready, and you’ll have the best graduates in cybersecurity with some data science expertise, they want to make sure that you can contribute to another component, which is that you’ll assure their success rate,’ Hayajneh said.

The Scholarship for Service program has a 95% success rate of placing graduates in government jobs; Hayajneh said that the University was able to point to previous alumni who’ve gone into careers in government as proof of Fordham students’ commitment to service.

Ultimately, he said, the scholarships, which are open to students of all majors and schools in the fall of 2022, are an ideal way to get a foot in the door of a challenging but rewarding field.

Experience and Mentorship

“Even if you graduate from the best program in the world, it’s always hard to start that first cybersecurity job because of a lack of experience,” he said.

That’s because the stakes are so much higher in the field than in others. An inexperienced network administrator can accidentally delete old records, invade someone’s privacy, or give enemies control of their networks, he said.

“This opportunity will guarantee students the ability to work in one of the top agencies in the cybersecurity field,” he said.

Additional Academic Partners

On Jan. 24 Fordham received word of another academic partnership in cybersecurity education: The University was accepted into the United States Cyber Command Academic Engagement Network. The newly formed network brings together 84 universities and colleges and government institutions such as the Cyber National Mission Force, U.S. Fleet Cyber Command, U.S. Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command, and the U.S. Coast Guard Cyber Command. The partnership will focus on future workforce development, applied cyber research, analytic partnerships, and cyber strategic dialogue.

Rocco Grillo, FCRH ’89, is a managing director in the New York office of Alvarez & Marshal, where he leads multidisciplinary teams that provide cybersecurity and incident response services to clients throughout the world.

He previously held a similar global leadership position at Stroz Friedberg, a digital forensics and cybersecurity firm co-founded by Fordham graduate and trustee Edward M. Stroz, GABELLI ’79.

Grillo, who earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology at Fordham College at Rose Hill, has worked closely with both corporate clients and government agencies, including the FBI and Secret Service.

“His 25 years of experience in cybersecurity advisory services, incident response investigations, and other technical advisory services, combined with his well-established understanding of commercial sector challenges and national security objectives, have made him influential to the development of national policy in cybersecurity—including the NIST Cybersecurity Framework,” according to The Consulting Report.

Anthony J. Ferrante, FCRH ’01, GSAS ’04, also has deep experience in both the public and private sectors. A former top cybersecurity official at the White House, he is currently the senior managing director and global head of cybersecurity for FTI Consulting.

Prior to joining FTI, he was the director of cyber incident response at the U.S. National Security Council from 2015 to 2017, and he previously served as chief of staff for the FBI’s Cyber Division.

In 2009, Ferrante, then a special agent in the FBI’s New York office, helped Fordham launch the International Conference on Cyber Security. The conference, typically held every 18 months at Fordham in partnership with the FBI, brings together university researchers, top security and law enforcement officials, and executives from companies including IBM, Microsoft, and Google.

More recently, Ferrante, who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science at Fordham, helped establish the master’s degree program in cybersecurity at the University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, where has served as an adjunct professor. In 2021, he joined the executive committee of the Fordham President’s Council, a group of successful professionals and philanthropists who are committed to mentoring Fordham’s future leaders.

“We’ve seen countless students graduate from the [master’s degree] program and start successful careers in cybersecurity, helping both to reduce the growing cybersecurity skills gap and better protect organizations from the endless barrage of cyber threats,” he told Consulting magazine in 2019.

Since 2017, Fordham has been recognized by the U.S. National Security Agency and Department of Homeland Security as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education. The University is home to the Center for Cybersecurity, and its undergraduate and graduate programs emphasize both competency-based learning and applied research.

Now the University is taking new steps to achieve these goals—by helping historically Black colleges and universities and minority-serving institutions develop similar programs of their own.

Strengthening cybersecurity programs at these institutions is the goal of the Cybersecurity Education Diversity Initiative Coalition, or CEDI, and in September, the National Security Agency (NSA) named Fordham as CEDI’s lead academic institution.

The NSA also awarded a $3 million grant to the Fordham-led effort.

“It has been known nationwide that there is a shortage in resources and expertise and opportunities for these minority institutions, and the NSA wants to shorten that gap,” said Thaier Hayajneh, Ph.D., director of Fordham’s cybersecurity center.

Hayajneh and Amelia Estwick, Ph.D., director of the National Cybersecurity Institute at Excelsior College, will serve as CEDI’s co-chairs.

About half of the grant will support institutions with cybersecurity programs as they devise plans to help minority- serving institutions develop their own programs, with the CEDI co-chairs overseeing their efforts, Hayajneh said.

The rest of the funds will directly support cybersecurity program development at historically Black colleges and universities and minority-serving institutions. The “ultimate goal,” Hayajneh said, is for these programs to earn a designation for national excellence in cybersecurity education that Fordham received from the NSA in 2017.

The coalition will help with curriculum support, guest lecturers, faculty hires, advisers and mentors for students, and opportunities to take part in competitions and other cybersecurity activities, he said.

Cybersecurity Is Everyone’s Business

Students, particularly those from underrepresented communities, can be intimidated by cybersecurity, thinking it involves only computer science and programming, Hayajneh said.

One way to address that misconception is to attract students from other disciplines, including business, criminal justice, and political science.

“The NSA and other agencies have realized that there’s a huge shortage in the cybersecurity workforce, so they are trying to encourage more of what we call the ‘soft side of cyber’ and encourage students from other disciplines to come to cyber,” he said. “Cybersecurity is way beyond just malware detection or operating system security.”

A Global Hub for Cyber Resilience

The University’s expertise in cybersecurity spans academic disciplines and departments, including those at the Gabelli School of Business and Fordham Law School. Fordham offers a master’s degree program in cybersecurity that has more than tripled in enrollment since 2016, two computer science master’s degree programs with an emphasis on cybersecurity, and a minor for undergraduates.

Since 2009, Fordham has also partnered with the FBI every 18 months to host the International Conference on Cyber Security, or ICCS, which features presentations by university researchers, top security and law enforcement officials, and executives from companies like IBM, Microsoft, and Google. The July 2019 conference featured the directors of the FBI and NSA as well as the U.S. attorney general.

Hayajneh, an expert on systems security, directs the master’s degree program and frequently collaborates with students on research. In one recent study, he and a student team devised a way to use blockchain technology to secure data collected from heart pacemakers, insulin pumps, and other cyber-physical systems. Their paper, published in the Journal of Medical Systems, has been cited nearly 200 times by other scholars since 2018.

Fordham’s program emphasizes competency-based learning and applied research to stay ahead of the latest threats and ever-rising cybercrime. “It makes students very successful when they go and seek jobs in the market,” Hayajneh said.

“We can’t just teach students math, programming, and then they can go and learn on the job. Nobody will hire you and give you their network to learn and to experiment with them,” he said. “Simple mistakes could bankrupt the whole company and cost them millions and billions of dollars.”

Graduates of the master’s program are working as software developers, digital forensic examiners, and directors of cybersecurity, among other roles. Their employers range from the United Nations to Con Edison, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and Marvel Entertainment.

Ileana van der Linde is an executive director at JPMorgan Chase, where she leads the asset and wealth management group’s global cybersecurity awareness program and works to educate the firm’s clients about cyber risks. In 2018, she joined Hayajneh to lead a seminar on cybersecurity for individuals and small business owners in the Bronx. She had been studying to become a certified information systems security professional, but after learning about the Fordham program, she decided to enroll part time.

She was drawn to Fordham’s designation as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education, she said, and to the “robust classroom discussion and networking” opportunities she found at the University. Her classmates include seasoned executives from the New York City Police Department, the FBI, and the NSA, as well as junior professionals and students she describes as “great programmers.”

“It’s a very big difference between what Fordham has and what other schools are offering,” she said.

—Kelly Kultys, FCRH ’15, is an assistant editor of this magazine.

Now, thanks to a $3 million grant from the National Security Agency (NSA), Fordham will be leading the charge to help Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions build their own cybersecurity programs, as well as gain access to established programs.

Fordham will serve as the lead institution for the Cybersecurity Education Diversity Initiative Coalition (CEDI), which aims to help address the “severe shortage” of cybersecurity programs at these institutions.

“It has been known nationwide that there is a shortage in resources and expertise and opportunities for these minority institutions,” Hayajneh said. “And the NSA wants to shorten that gap.”

Hayajneh and Amelia Estwick, Ph.D., director of the National Cybersecurity Institute at Excelsior College, will serve as the co-chairs of the CEDI Coalition.

About half of the grant will be given to “subawardees”—other institutions with established cybersecurity programs. They will come up with innovative solutions to help minority-serving institutions (MSIs) develop cybersecurity programs. Fordham’s Center for Cybersecurity and the two co-chairs of CEDI will oversee their plans and ideas, which could include turning existing cybersecurity clubs into full programs, inviting students from MSIs to join competitions, hosting workshops for faculty, and allowing for students to transfer from MSIs to colleges with a cybersecurity degree program.

“We will supervise them; we will make sure they deliver what they have promised to serve the minority institutions and historically black colleges and universities,” he said.

Hayajneh said with the other half of the grant, CEDI will reach out directly to HBCUs and minority institutions to provide funding for them to either establish a cybersecurity program or support an existing one. The coalition will then help these programs earn designation as a “Center for Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity Education,” which Hayajneh described as “the ultimate goal.” The Fordham Center for Cybersecurity received its CAE designation in 2017.

“We will provide them with whatever they need in terms of curriculum and we will allow other universities to share their curriculum,” Hayajneh said. “We will share faculty online or as guest lecturers. We’ll hire faculty from CAE institutions that are located, geographically at least, close to the universities.”

They will also provide advisers and mentors to minority students and support their participation in competitions or cybersecurity activities, he said.

Hayajneh said he’ll draw from his experience in developing hands-on, practical curriculum.

“We try to teach the students how to do things and how to actually get the job done when they are hired,” he said. “We focus a lot on how to tackle problems that they will face in their real life out in the real world.”

Hayajneh said that often when people, particularly those from underrepresented communities, think of cybersecurity they think it only involves computer science and programming.

“That was one of the obstacles that faced most of the students, and in particular children from underrepresented communities—they wouldn’t be confident to come and study cybersecurity,” he said. “They feel that they will be overwhelmed or they will not have a chance. So we’re trying to change that nature and bring more diverse backgrounds and more diverse students into cybersecurity.”

One of the ways to address that misconception and attract a more diverse workforce to cybersecurity is to attract students from other disciplines, including business, criminal justice, and political science, Hayajneh said.

“The NSA and other agencies have realized that there’s a huge shortage in the cybersecurity workforce, so they are trying to encourage more of what we call the ‘soft side of cyber’ and encourage students from other disciplines to come to cyber,” he said. “Cybersecurity is way beyond just malware detection or operating system security.”

The DoD Cyber Scholarships will cover the full tuition, health insurance, housing, and related expenses of the students, whose names are being withheld due to the sensitive nature of the work. In exchange, they will intern at DoD-affiliated organizations next summer and will work for a DoD organization such as the NSA for at least a year after graduating. (Update: In August 2020, the NSA allowed for the release of the students’ names. They are Patrick Mayrisch, GABELLI ‘ 20, and Peter Jennings, FCRH ’20.)

The funding for the scholarships represents one of two grants that were secured by University Professor Thaier Hayajneh, Ph.D., founding director of Fordham’s Center for Cybersecurity.

As a result of a successful application to the program, Fordham can now administer the grant to students, who are chosen by the DoD.

The other grant, which the center has secured twice previously, covers capacity building efforts for the University’s cybersecurity program that can be shared with other CAE-CDE partners.

Hayajneh said the scholarships, which are available to undergraduate and graduate students interested in cybersecurity, are a validation of both the students’ outstanding credentials and Fordham’s growing leadership in the field.

“It’s a great recognition for our undergraduate programs, because they’ve selected students who are getting undergraduate degrees at Fordham, one of them in computer sciences at Fordham College at Rose Hill, and the other in information systems at the Gabelli School of Business,” said Hayajneh.

The scholarships can be used for one or two years, so in the future, undergraduates in their junior year can apply for it as well and use it for their senior year of undergraduate studies and one year of a master’s program. The two students who received it this year will complete nine classes during the 2020-2021 academic year and earn their final credits with a practicum at their internship.

The master’s in cybersecurity has been offered since 2016, and is one of three degrees the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences offers with an emphasis on cybersecurity. There is also a minor offered to undergraduates.

Since 2009, Fordham has also partnered every 18 months with the FBI to organize and host the International Conference on Cyber Security (ICCS), a four-day long conference that is regularly attended by the directors of the FBI and the NSA. The NSA designated the University a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education (CAE-CDE) in 2017.

In keeping with his goal of expanding recruitment of students to fields besides computer science, Hayajneh said that he reached out to all students either minoring or majoring the STEM field.

“The field of cyber has changed a lot. They don’t have to be programmers, they could be anything related to cybersecurity,” he said.

“These two students have really high GPAs, excellent credentials, and have been involved in internships in the past, and that’s why they were selected. Now that we’ve got these first grants, I’m optimistic that next year we’ll get five or even more.”