Halting cyberterrorism
UB is dsignated center to protect IT from security breaches
By ELLEN
GOLDBAUM
Contributing Editor
The
National Security Agency (NSA) has named UB a Center of Excellence in
Information Systems Assurance Research and Education to develop new
programs to conduct research and train students to protect the nation's
information technology systems from cyberterrorism and security breaches
on the Internet.
UB
is one of 13 universities to receive the designation this year and among
only 36 who have been named to date by the NSA.
The
designation as a Center of Excellence in Information Systems Assurance
Research and Education is awarded competitively to universities that
have proven they meet rigorous NSA requirements in both curriculum and
research.
Shambhu
Upadhyaya, associate professor of computer science and engineering,
will be center director.
"The
importance of information security has been raised recently in our national
consciousness," said Bruce Pitman, vice provost for educational technology.
"The designation of this NSA center is a tribute to Professor Upadhyaya
and the array of scholars he has brought together to address this need."
Pitman
noted that the designation allows UB to compete with the best research
groups in the country for federal grants, awards and scholarship opportunities
from the Department of Defense and other agencies, and allows students
to be part of leading-edge scientific discoveries and education.
"There
are always people with malicious intent who will look for the loopholes
in the system," Upadhyaya noted. "With the Internet so pervasive, there
has been for several years a critical shortage of professionals in the
area of information assurance. The federal government has recognized
that higher education is the solution to protecting the nation's information
infrastructure and this center will play a key role."
The
goals of the multidisciplinary center are to contribute to the SUNY
Homeland Defense initiative at UB by collaborating with state and federal
agencies, including the New York State Office of Science and Technology
and Academic Research (NYSTAR), to implement educational programs in
information assurancefirst at the graduate level and eventually
at the undergraduate leveland to collaborate with and help train
employees of local companies involved in computer security research.
"The
center provides an excellent opportunity to partner with local companies
and others across New York State to obtain joint federal funding, as
well as to provide potential employees to those firms by graduating
well-trained students," said Mark Karwan, dean of the School of Engineering
and Applied Sciences.
The
center brings together individual UB researchers in the School of Engineering
and Applied Science, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Law School
and the School of Management who have been working independently on
various aspects of information-technology assurance.
"There
are more than 20 courses in this field at UB and at least 10 faculty
members doing funded research in this area," said Upadhyaya. "The objective
of the center is to bring all of them into one formal center to build
a cohesive program."
Participating
faculty include Alan Selman, professor; Bharat Jayaraman, professor
and chair; Sviatoslav B. Braynov, assistant professor, and Chunming
Qiao, associate professor, all of the Department of Computer Science
and Engineering; H. Raghav Rao, professor, and Rajiv Kishore, assistant
professor, both in the Department of Management Science and Systems;
Shubha Ghosh and Robert Reis, both professors in the Law School, and
Thomas Cusick, professor in the Department of Mathematics.
Courses
and research at UB in the field center on topics ranging from e-commerce
and cryptography to intellectual property, database management and advanced
programming.
Immediate
goals of the center are to begin a certificate program in information
assurance at the masters' level and to add an information assurance
concentration in the existing master's degree program in computer science
and engineering.
Upadhyaya
said graduate students should be able to enroll in the new certificate
program in information assurance beginning in Fall 2003. He added that
he and other UB faculty members will be working with currently enrolled
students to tailor master's programs so that they reflect an emphasis
in information assurance.