Tichina Arnold Visits Bowie State to Combat Phishing With Gabriel Crypto

Award-Winning Actress Believes More Must be Done to Stop Scammers

MEDIA CONTACT: David Thompson, dlthompson@bowiestate.edu, 301-860-4311

(BOWIE, Md.) – Tichina Arnold, award-winning actress and co-star of the CBS hit sitcom, The Neighborhood, visited Bowie State University’s Performing Arts Center on March 25 to speak about Gabriel Crypto, a newly developed app that protects individuals from spam calls or phishing.

Each year spam calls account for people losing personal information, financial assets, and peace of mind.  Bowie State University graduate students in the Department of Computer Science are conducting research to improve the speed of detecting new spam and ensuring the Gabriel Crypto App functions on an I-phone. Gabriel Crypto users receive payments in Bitcoin for reporting calls they believe are scams. Currently, the Gabriel App is only offered on Android devices.

“People feel violated when they are victimized by scammers,” said Tichina Arnold. “I know because it happened to me.  Scamming is a crime and a $32 billion dollar a year problem for individuals, law enforcement, and our economy. That’s why it is imperative that people use the Gabriel Crypto App to protect themselves from thieves,” she said.

Funded by a National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant to Forward Edge, Gabriel is an industry-leading SMS phishing protection technology that leverages Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain technologies to eliminate mobile eCommerce scams. BSU graduate students are working to enhance the product under the leadership of computer science Professor Darsana Joysula.

“Our graduate students are getting real-time experience in helping to solve a major worldwide problem and evolving new skills in product development,” said Professor Joysula. “There are currently 10,000 Gabriel Crypto App users and our goal is to improve the product thus increasing the number of users exponentially.”

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Bowie State University (BSU) is an important higher education access portal for qualified persons from diverse academic and socioeconomic backgrounds, seeking a high-quality and affordable public comprehensive university. The university places special emphasis on the science, technology, cybersecurity, teacher education, business, and nursing disciplines within the context of a liberal arts education. For more information about BSU, visit bowiestate.edu.