CCI launches new cybersecurity initiative, seeks pilot partner
The College of Computing and Informatics (CCI) is launching a new cybersecurity outreach initiative aimed at supporting area resource-constrained partner organizations based on the college’s decades of award-winning, nationally recognized leadership in the field.
Led by Bill Chu, Managing Director of CCI’s CyberDNA Center; Vinicius Da Costa, adjunct faculty in cybersecurity; and Cori Faklaris, Assistant Professor in the Department of Software and Information Systems, this initiative will foster collaboration between external private and public sector partners, CCI faculty and students, and industry partners.
“This is a win-win proposition. It provides a much needed service to companies and organizations that are most vulnerable to cyber attacks on the one hand and provides practical experiences for our students,” Chu said. “We are grateful for the strong support we received from our friends in the cybersecurity community who are dedicated to giving back to our community.”
CCI is seeking an inaugural partner organization to be its first client. The initiative is seeking a client located within approximately 50 miles of the University, in the private, public, or nonprofit sector, that does not currently have the resources to perform its own cybersecurity threat modeling and risk assessment.
The first client will work closely with Chu and Da Costa’s students to assess their current cybersecurity capabilities in a time when business crippling cyber-attacks have become common. At the end of this semester, students will provide the partner organization with a comprehensive and actionable list of recommendations for how the client organization can best improve their cybersecurity based on their analysis, free of charge.
The College of Computing and Informatics has been producing pioneering, impactful research in cybersecurity for over two decades, and has been nationally recognized by the National Security Agency and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as a Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education and Research.
If you represent an organization interested in partnering with CCI’s cybersecurity initiative this semester, please click here to fill out the application survey.