Gateway Guardians

JMU to head Virginia's information security center

In May, Virginia Gov. James Gilmore established a $9 million Commonwealth Information Security Center at JMU that will help combat attacks on computer systems. The center is a key element of Gilmore's Digital Dominion initiative.

The university is also home to the world's only completely Internet-driven master's degree program in computer science with a concentration in information security. The program has been recognized by the National Security Agency.

JMU's College of Integrated Science and Technology will house the new Commonwealth Information Security Center. The new center, which will focus on applied research and technology transfer, will work with both the private and public sectors to help Virginia become a leading pro-vider of information security services and research.

The center will be funded by the Commonwealth Technology Research Fund, created by Gilmore and the General Assembly in 2000 to increase technological and economic development in Virginia. The CTRF will provide $4 million for the center over three years, and another $5 million will come from JMU, industry and other governmental sources. Other partners include George Mason University, Hampton University and Virginia Tech.

"The terrorist of the future won't carry guns and explosives and force his way into sensitive areas - unless he just wants to make a show of it," says Jerry Benson, dean of the College of Integrated Science and Technology. "Instead, he'll sit at a computer terminal and, with a few keystrokes, do more damage than he ever could with physical force."

JMU computer science professors, Mohamed Eltoweissy and Samuel Redwine, were the principal investigators for the CTRF grant. Redwine says, "The center will provide a resource that business, industry and government can turn to for help in protecting computing systems."

The center will also conduct information security research and share results with Virginia firms that develop information security products; provide a network of specialized knowledge among research centers, government agencies, private companies and industries; improve the ability of JMU and its academic partners to educate people in information security; and accelerate the development and deployment of information security technology in Virginia.

While the center will focus on security needs and issues in Virginia, Benson says that JMU's membership in the National Consortium for Information Systems Security and Education will help the research center contribute to a national framework for advancing information security.

"The center will be a collaborative effort involving several universities and many industrial partners," Eltoweissy emphasizes. "These collaborations will enable the center to have both a broad range of experience and enormous depth of expertise."

Redwine notes that the establishment of the center comes at a time when computer systems throughout the country are compromised on an increasingly frequent basis. "It is estimated that $7.6 billion has been lost in business productivity because of worms and viruses," he says, "and that international banks allow $12 million per year in unauthorized wire transfers because of security breaches. As a result, spending on information security has skyrocketed."

Learn more about the Commonwealth Information Security Center and Technology Research Fund <www. the digitaldominion.com>.

By Charles Culbertson