Elevating the cybersecurity of tactical drones

By TOWSON UNIVERSITY on February 27, 2024

Today, Towson University has announced that SURVICE Engineering, a defense company and Maryland small business, has partnered with TU’s Cyber4All Center to secure unmanned aircraft systems that they are producing with their partner, Malloy Aeronautics. 

SURVICE Engineering, founded in 1981 and headquartered in Belcamp, Maryland, is a specialty engineering firm that supports the U.S. Armed Forces through test and evaluation, modeling and simulation, dimensional metrology, reverse engineering, information management, cyber survivability and security, and its notable growing drone program. 

Then TU Cyber4All Center, also known as the TU Center for Interdisciplinary & Innovative Cybersecurity, implements novel solutions to current and future cybersecurity research and education challenges. The faculty and students in the cutting-edge education programs across TU will work at the center on risk analysis and the encryption capabilities of drones for this project, led by Dr. Mike O’Leary and Dr. Nathan McNew from the Department of Mathematics.

“We’re proud to engage with industry experts beyond the TU community to collaborate and solve issues as they relate to cybersecurity,” says Blair Taylor, director of the TU Cyber4All Center. “Being able to engage our students and faculty with experiential learning in the world of cybersecurity is so important. It will supplement their courses and lectures with real-world experience as they venture further into the industry.”

Together, TU Cyber4All and SURVICE Engineering are hosting a tactical drone display on Feb. 29, 2024, which all members of the community are invited to attend. Located at 10 West Burke Avenue in Towson, Maryland, the event will showcase the types of tactical drones that serve as the focus of this collaboration followed by a Q&A.

The collaboration was boosted by the help of Congressman C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, who represents Maryland’s Second District and has championed the development of unmanned aircraft and strong cybersecurity policies at the federal level.

“I have watched SURVICE Engineering develop its tactical resupply vehicle from its Maryland headquarters and know that it is now supporting our troops on the frontlines around the world,” Congressman Ruppersberger said. “Adding the Towson University Cyber Center to the program will help ensure secure communications for the platform as it is confronted by our adversaries on the battlefield.”

For more information about the Cyber4All Center, visit https://www.towson.edu/provost/initiatives/center-cybersecurity/.

For media inquiries, email Jamie Abell at jaabell AT_TOWSON.

About Towson University
Towson University is Maryland’s university of opportunities. With more than 150 years of experience pushing possibilities, TU is a nationally recognized leader in inclusive excellence, social mobility, research and discovery. As the largest university in greater Baltimore, TU’s momentum is always accelerating, with more than 20,000 students and 100 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs in the liberal arts and sciences and applied professional fields. Located amid one of the East Coast’s cultural and economic epicenters, TU is a beacon and powerful catalyst in the Mid-Atlantic, partnering with hundreds of businesses and organizations, impacting communities and fueling change. TU meets the holistic needs of each student to achieve success, a result of a deeply inclusive culture with a focus on equity among all students, faculty and staff. 

About SURVICE Engineering
SURVICE is a nationally recognized leader in systems engineering for the US Department of Defense. With over 350 employees and numerous locations across the country, the SURVICE Engineering Company provides combat system protection, enhancement, and enabling technologies. In addition, we have continued to grow to match the needs of our customers, expanding and enhancing our capabilities to support the DoD community, as well as homeland security, advanced technologies, and commercial markets. We work hard to retain the original vision upon which SURVICE was founded—to provide our warfighters with the best, most survivable, and most effective equipment possible.