Fairfax, VA, April 14, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The competition was stiff in the first The Cyber Edge writing contest with more than 40 information technology professionals from the military, industry and academia submitting feature articles in hopes of winning. ManTech International Corporation sponsored the competition.
Dr. Bryan C. Ward and Ryan C. Burrow were chosen as the first place winners for their article, “Software Security for Real-Time and Embedded Applications.” The feature delves into how many cyber-physical systems and safety-critical applications domains such as industrial control systems have not seen the widespread adoption of effective software defenses.
Ward is a technical staff member and Burrow is an associate staff member in the Secure Resilient Systems and Technology Group at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Their article will be published in SIGNAL Magazine’s June issue and online.
“The COBOL Crisis” was chosen as the second place winner. Written by Midshipman Allison Annick, the feature addresses the challenging issue surrounding the continued use of common business-oriented language (COBOL) in a time when the experts in this computer language are retiring from the workforce. The article is timely as multiple states struggle to respond to a surge in unemployment and other financial benefits applications because of the lack of workers with COBOL skills and experience to run the outmoded systems.
Midshipman Annick is a senior at the United States Naval Academy majoring in cyber operations and minoring in Chinese.
Stephen Wood’s submission, “4 Steps to Bringing IoT Risk Under Control,” was awarded third place in the competition. The article offers recommendations about how companies can minimize the danger to the Internet of Things items in their industrial environments.
Wood is a strategic product manager who uses the insights he has garnered from studying technology market evolution to design security products for Tripwire.
The articles written by Annick and Wood also will be published in future issues of SIGNAL Magazine and online; all winners receive engraved awards and monetary prizes.
Details about the 2021 competition will be available soon. Anyone interested in receiving the information can enter their email address online and will be notified when it is released.
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