Computer Science Degrees Lack Security Courses

Morning Coffee is a robust blend of links to news around the internet concerning the Naval Air Station Patuxent River economic community. The opinions expressed here do not reflect opinions of the Leader’s owners or staff.

The top 10 computer science and engineering programs across the country do not require students to complete a cybersecurity course in order to graduate, Digital Trends reports. A study by security firm CloudPassage looked at 121 programs and discovered that only the University of Michigan, which ranks number 12 in the country based on the U.S. News & World education report from 2015, is the only institution that requires completion of a security course for graduation.

The Royal Netherlands Air Force has cleared its Douglas KDC-10 aerial tanker to refuel the F-35, paving the way for the fighter’s public debut in June, Aerospace Daily reports. The first Dutch F-35s will be stationed in the Netherlands in 2019.

NAVAIR has confirmed that the Next Generation Jammer Increment 1 electronic attack pod destined for the Navy’s EA-18G Growler aircraft has transitioned into its engineering and manufacturing development phase, IHS Jane’s 360 reports. The NGJ is intended to provide enhanced airborne EA capabilities to disrupt and degrade enemy air defense and ground communication systems.

The partial withdrawal of Russian military aircraft from Syria does not mean that Moscow’s forces are not still heavily involved in the fighting there, DefenceTalk says. Since the Kremlin said it was scaling down its air presence in the country, regime forces — backed up crucially by Russian firepower — have in fact scored some of their most dramatic successes in areas not covered by the February ceasefire.

Outdated federal acquisition regulations and laws “make it a struggle” for the military’s IT sector to stay on the cutting edge, says Janice Haith, US Navy deputy chief information officer. “The biggest challenge we have fiscally is the law is just not agile enough and won’t keep pace, and I don’t see it doing that any time soon with the way technology evolves,” she said, according to NextGov.

The Defense Department is lagging on an initiative to close data centers and save money, FCW reports. DoD CIO Terry Halvorsen has made data center consolidation, and slashing the centers’ labor costs, a signature initiative of his tenure as the Pentagon’s IT chief. However, a recent DoD inspector general report took his office to task for falling well short of a requirement to close 40 percent of DoD data centers by the end of fiscal 2015.

The terrorist insurgency group Boko Haram has stepped up its kidnapping and impressment of children into its ranks, UNICEF reports, with children being forced to participate in suicide bombings in Cameroon and Nigeria. The proportion of attacks involving boys and girls is on the rise, with children as young as 8. The use of children, especially girls, as suicide bombers has become one of the defining, and alarming, features of the conflict.

A new report calls for a ban on “killer robots” and for humans to remain in control over all weapons systems at a time of rapid technological advances, Navy Times reports.  The report says that requiring humans to remain in control of critical functions during combat, including the selection of targets, saves lives and ensures that fighters comply with international law. The report by Human Rights Watch and the Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic was released as the United Nations kicked off a week-long meeting on such weapons in Geneva.

Here’s the one word everyone needs to stop using in the office, according to Government Executive. And no, it’s not the one you’re thinking of.