Software Engineering Institute

September 27, 2022—The Software Engineering Institute will support Cybersecurity Awareness Month with free webcasts on a range of cybersecurity topics, hosted by researchers from the SEI’s CERT Division. The free webcasts will take place on October 4, 11, and 27.

Every October since 2004, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) have sponsored an awareness-raising campaign about the importance of cybersecurity across the nation. This year the theme of the campaign is “See Yourself In Cyber.”

“Each of us has a role to play in cybersecurity, since we all rely on information technology in our home and work settings,” said Greg Touhill, director of the SEI’s CERT Division. “Protecting data, devices, and access makes all of us part of the global cyber workforce. Our critical data exists on our devices, whether on our computers or in the cloud, and we all have a stake in protecting it.”

CISA offers resources, such as pamphlets and social media messaging, to help “individuals and organizations to own their role in protecting their part of cyberspace, stressing personal accountability and the importance of taking proactive steps to enhance cybersecurity,” according to the CISA website.

The CERT Division has supported the Department of Homeland Security since 2003 and CISA since its formation in 2018. To help spread the word about Cybersecurity Awareness Month, the SEI's CERT Division will highlight some of its research and development by presenting three webcasts to help cybersecurity leaders strengthen their organizations:

• Using Open Source to Shrink the Cyber Workforce Gap, October 4, 11 a.m. to noon EDT: CERT cybersecurity experts Matt Kaar and Jarrett Booz will focus on open source initiatives that bring innovative ideas to cybersecurity modeling and simulation, assessment, and competitions.
• Ransomware: Defense and Resilience Strategies, October 11, 1:30-2:30 p.m. EDT: Brett Tucker, the CERT Division’s technical manager of cyber risk management, will discuss a novel means for assessing an organization to determine its susceptibility to ransomware and explore the organization’s ability to recover normal operations after a successful attack.
• Applying the Principles of Agile to Strengthen the Federal Cyber Workforce, October 27, 11 a.m. to noon EDT: Josh Hammerstein, the CERT Division’s research and prototypes technical manager, will examine how to use principles and concepts from Agile development to help cyber workforce development initiatives remain adaptable and effective in the continuously evolving landscape of the cyber domain.

The webcasts are free to attend but require registration.

“Part of our mission is to transition our research to the community,” said Touhill. “These webcasts let others learn about our latest findings in cybersecurity while raising awareness of this critical field.”

Recent public releases from the CERT Division include the Common Sense Guide to Mitigating Insider Threats, Seventh Edition; the DevSecOps Platform-Independent Model; the log4j vulnerability scanner; and the podcast A Dive into Deepfakes.

Find more SEI releases and events on our website. For more on the CERT Division’s recent work in cybersecurity, the SEI Blog delivers the freshest insights from our researchers. Subscribe to get every new post in your inbox. You can get the SEI delivered to your inbox twice a month by subscribing to the SEI Bulletin newsletter.