NSU Horizons Spring 2017

15 NSU HORIZONS With Russian hackers, leaked emails and personal information ending up in public, cybersecurity continues to be a major topic both in the United States and interna- tionally. And, NSU is at the forefront of cybersecurity issues with the NSU College of Engineering and Comput- ing (CEC) designated for more than a decade as a Center of Academic Excellence in Informational Assurance and Cyber Defense by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Yair Levy, Ph.D., professor of information systems and cybersecurity at the college, believes that the CEC’s designation is no small feat. “This is for our dedication to producing professionals in the field with information assurance expertise in various disciplines; because of our graduate-level and doctoral research that we have been doing in information assurance, information security, and cybersecurity; and because we have faculty members with so much varied expertise and skills,” he said. The designation, which has been granted to only 128 colleges in the United States, was awarded in 2005. On October 7, 2014, NSU was re-designated through aca- demic year 2021. For more than two decades, the college has been focused on working with students interested in learning in hands-on and research-intensive degree programs, where the focus is on developing the skills to design, program, enhance, and develop cybersecurity technologies that secure information and systems. Additionally, they are delving into what Levy calls the “human-centric” side of cybersecurity—the social engineering aspect. NSU was a pioneer in cybersecurity, beginning in 2000, said James Cannady, Ph.D., a CEC professor. “We had very little in the way of offerings for cybersecurity. But, back then, no other schools did either,” said Cannady, who also said that the college began to add a “diversity of classes” because NSU executives knew the field of cybersecurity was so specialized. “We wanted to offer a suite of courses to our students. We were also targeting getting the courses certified by NSA and there were specific requirements. As we developed the new courses, we were looking to satisfy and fill out those requirements,” said Cannady. Degrees granted from the college include the Master of Science in Information Security and the Master of Science in Management Information Systems with a concentration in Information Security Management. In fall 2014, the college began the first Doctor of Information Assurance for working professionals in the United States. “There is very little out there when it comes to degrees in cybersecurity at the Ph.D. level,” said Cannady. “There are a few traditional, four- or five-year programs, which require students to be there full time, every day, as teaching assistants, for instance, and doing research side-by-side with an adviser. Most of our students are unable to go that traditional route—they have careers, mortgages, families—so we offer them a fully accredited SACS [Southern Association of Colleges and Schools] program that’s also recognized by NSA as being an excellent program. We have come up with what I consider a state-of-the-art-in-security education.” The program’s ability to allow those working in the field to earn the degree without career interruption, plus the esteemed designation, were both factors for Angel Hueca and Sharar (Sean) Aviv, currently Ph.D. students in Information Systems and Information Security. For both students, Levy’s research focus through a human-centric lens, where his students conduct applied and innovative research in social engineering, was yet another draw to NSU’s cybersecurity program. STUDENT RESEARCH “The toughest nut to crack,” said Levy, “is the social engineering aspect of cybersecurity, and most often [it] is a starting step toward the whole cyber-attack process.” NSU students involved in information systems and cybersecurity are coming up with innovative research solutions. BY MICHELLE F. SOLOMON continued on page 16