UC Irvine Designated National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Research

The National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) designate UCI for academic years 2008 through 2013

UC Irvine has been designated as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Research (CAE-R) for the academic years 2008 through 2013.

The CAE-R Program is intended to reduce vulnerabilities in, and threats to, the national information infrastructure by facilitating education and research in information assurance and training a growing number of researchers and practitioners with information assurance expertise.

“The UCI faculty who teach courses on, and conduct research in, information assurance, are extremely happy about UCI’s CAE-R designation,” said Professor Gene Tsudik. “It acknowledges our collective impact and expertise in IA as well as willingness and ability to help the nation in educating and training IA professionals and researchers.”

Tsudik, together with Associate Dean Michael Goodrich, head the Bren School of ICS’s Secure Computing and Networking Center (SCONCE).

SCONCE focuses on the importance of security and privacy in our increasingly computerized life is difficult to overestimate. The Center also aims to develop feasible and effective remedies that are legally permissible and enforceable, and understandable and acceptable for computer users.

“Besides being a nice recognition of the things we have achieved here at UCI in information assurance research, this designation allows us to compete for targeted grants from the NSF, DHS, and NSA to further expand on our accomplishments” said Goodrich.

The National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security jointly sponsor the National Centers of Academic Excellence Program.

This partnership was formed in April 2004 and responds to Priority III of the President’s National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace of 2003 that directs the Federal Government to foster training and education programs to support the Nation’s cybersecurity needs, and to increase the efficiency of existing Federal cybersecurity programs.

The President’s National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace refers to cyberspace as the nervous system of our Nation’s critical infrastructures, and indicates that the healthy functioning of cyberspace is essential to our economy and our national security.

Securing cyberspace presents a difficult strategic challenge, and information assurance education is a critical component in successfully meeting that challenge.