UI Named Center of Excellence in Info Assurance Research

5/13/2009

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The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has announced that the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is one of the inaugural recipients of their newly created National

Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Research (CAE-R) designation. The CAE-R designation is a renewable 5-year designation established to give formal recognition to universities whose outstanding graduate research programs in the field of information assurance demonstrate significant impact. Areas measured include engagement in Information Assurance (IA) research initiatives, community service and outreach, production of graduate-level students, student-based research in IA, faculty activity in current IA practice and research, contributions to IA literature, and related research funding received by the university.

Illinois Provost Linda Katehi expressed her appreciation of the recognition. "The CAE-R designation acknowledges the outstanding leadership in information assurance research at Illinois. We have exceptional strength in this area, which is so important to our nation and our society. Research in computer security, information trust, and information assurance is a priority for our campus, and we make important, state-of-the-art contributions that advance its dissemination and practice. Illinois is the home of the Information Trust Institute (ITI), which coordinates research and educational activities in information trust across campus, including both faculty and student-based research. The NSA designation recognizes this strength."

Computer science professor and ITI researcher Roy Campbell will represent Illinois at a ceremony recognizing the achievement to be held on Wednesday, June 4, 2008 during the annual Colloquium for Information Systems Security Education. Professor Campbell is the Director of ITI's Center for Information Assurance Education, which coordinates educational activities in information assurance across the campus. The IA Education Center takes the lead in a variety of ongoing educational programs and special events, and also offers support to educational activities being led by other groups within the Information Trust Institute.

Campbell explained that the term "information assurance" refers to efforts to manage and minimize the risks associated with information systems. "We're trying to push beyond the traditional boundaries of information assurance and computer security research to seek ways to make information technologies a trusted asset of society. Information assurance work at Illinois has really taken off in the last few years. The Information Trust Institute has added new dimensions to information assurance research at Illinois by examining secure, dependable, correct, safe, private, and survivable computer systems, networks, and software. The combination of research thrusts undertaken by ITI is perhaps unique in its depth and breadth."

The computer science department is engaged in research into Information Assurance topics across a broad spectrum. A sample of current research activities includes: authorization issues in virtual organizations and distributed enterprises; compliant archival storage of records and integrated lifecycle management for archival materials; machine learning and inference techniques for security-related applications; formal methods to model DoS threats and design incremental and automatic countermeasures; and the use of policy adaptation in messaging systems to improve flexibility, security, and integration for multi-tier web server systems, databases, and information systems; and development of perimeter control, privacy and insider threat, and audit and intrusion detection techniques to address building automation system security. Additionally, computer science researchers are leading a variety of projects at ITI.

The CAE-R program has been created as an enhancement to NSA's existing National Centers of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education (CAEIAE) program, which recognizes universities that offer students outstanding programs of academic coursework in information assurance. Illinois has held a CAEIAE designation, which is a prerequisite for CAE-R designation, since 2000. The CAEIAE/CAE-R program is jointly sponsored by the NSA and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in support of the President's National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace. According to NSA's website, "The goal of the program is to reduce vulnerability in our national information infrastructure by promoting higher education in information assurance (IA), and producing a growing number of professionals with IA expertise in various disciplines."

The National Security Agency is America's cryptologic organization, performing specialized activities to protect U.S. government information systems and to gather intelligence. The Department of Homeland Security was created in 2002 with a primary mission of protecting the United States from terrorist attacks.


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This story was published May 13, 2009.