Cybersecurity

Huddled over laptop computers, four midshipmen spent 20 minutes setting up a wireless network and tested it with what they assumed was a private chat. But Ensign Justin Monroe, a teaching assistant at the Naval Academy, used a small wireless receiver to intercept their conversation. With a click, he projected the messages on the screen at the front of the room for the entire class to see. While their chatter was innocuous - "hello" and "he's in my company, too" - the implications, Monroe warned the class, were anything but. "You're just broadcasting this," he said.

Corporate Office Properties Trust, a Columbia-based owner and developer of office parks, lowered its third-quarter earnings expectations because of a loss on an investment in a cybersecurity firm, the company said Friday. COPT, which specializes in government and defense-related tenants, said it expects earnings of 2 cents per share to 5 cents per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30. The company, an office real estate investment trust, had said in July that it expected a range of 19 cents per share to 22 cents per share for the third quarter.

At a gathering of governors, Gov. Martin O'Malley led a panel Sunday on cybersecurity, calling attacks on state and federal databases "one of the nation's great emerging threats. " The Democratic governor is co-chairman of the National Governors Association's homeland security and public safety committee, sharing the role with Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer. As chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, O'Malley had a prominent role throughout the weekend-long National Governors Association meeting, which included sessions on Medicaid, the economy and education.

The Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development released a new "CyberMaryland" logo on Friday as part of its plans for marketing the state as a leader in the cybersecurity industry. In January, Gov. Martin O'Malley unveiled the CyberMaryland initiative more than a year ago to promote the state's businesses, academic institutions and government agencies involved in cybersecurity. The logo features the name, CyberMaryland, and the tagline: Epicenter for Information Security and Innovation.

Sourcefire Inc., a Columbia-based cybersecurity company, said Wednesday it acquired for $21 million a California company that specializes in providing digital protection to users of Internet-based computing networks. Sourcefire said it was paying $21 million cash for Immunet, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based company. The deal included $17 million paid out immediately and $4 million paid over the next 18 months if Immunet reaches unspecified milestones for its software targeted for business use, which it plans to roll out this year.

Several big investment banks advised Leonard E. Moodispaw that he shouldn't do it — but the CEO of KEYW Corp., a cybersecurity company in Hanover that's been in business for just two years, wouldn't listen. Restless and eager to expand quickly, Moodispaw took KEYW public last month — after canning the Wall Street naysayers who told him to wait for a more hospitable stock market. The company, with the help of smaller investment banks, raised $89 million on the day of its initial public offering.

The U.S. Naval Academy's new superintendent wants his campus to become a center for cybersecurity education, with a $100 million building and a slate of new classes devoted to the emerging discipline, he said Friday in his first interview since taking the job in August. "It's an important part of my tenure here to get that project going forward," said Vice Adm. Michael H. Miller during a session with reporters at the academy's on-campus museum. Miller said an introductory cybersecurity class would replace another required course in the curriculum for the Class of 2015, and he eventually expects the academy to produce graduates who specialize in cyberwarfare.

The University of Maryland Baltimore County said Monday it is partnering with Northrop Grumman Corp. to set up a cybersecurity incubator to lure startup businesses from all over the country to the campus. The campus' research arm will work with the large defense contractor to provide expertise to small startup companies that are offered scholarships to develop their technologies at the university. The companies will work at the bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park in Baltimore.

Amid growing interest in cybersecurity, and with the new national Cyber Command located at Fort Meade, Howard County Executive Ken Ulman has appointed a commission to look for economic development opportunities. Co-chairs of the 13-member commission will be Larry Cox, vice president of SAIC, the private cybersecurity firm in the county's Gateway Business Park, and Richard Roca, the recently retired head of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in southern Howard County.

The Anne Arundel County Council has approved $1.1 million to expand cybersecurity programs at the county's community college, which have attracted scores of students hoping to win jobs associated with the expansion of Fort Meade. The bill authorizes Anne Arundel Community College to use $1.1 million of its fund balance from the fiscal year 2010 budget to expand the program, which will create a new lab at Glen Burnie Town Center. The county will reimburse the college by floating bonds in the fiscal year 2012.