Review: Lunch & Learn: Information Assurance and Cyber Security – The Security Risk Management Challenge
On August 14th Dr. Themis Papageorge, Associate Clinical Professor and Director of Northeastern University’s Graduate Information Assurance Program, gave a presentation at the Northeastern University – Seattle campus with over 20 people attending. The topic for his presentation was “Information Assurance and Cyber Security – The Security Risk Management Challenge”.
Dr. Papageorge started with a definition of Information Assurance (IA) as a “set of measures that protect and defend information and information systems”. The five metrics that IA is based upon are confidentiality, integrity, authentication, availability, and non-reputiation. Dr. Papageorge gave a background on some notable IA breaches including the TJX credit card scandal in which nearly 130 million credit card numbers and $100 million were stolen. He also touched upon the recent Edward Snowden NSA and CIA breach where Snowden leaked information to the press about U.S. and U.K. governmental mass surveillance programs.
The amount of attention in congress and the news has exponentially increased recently. The amount of act/laws passed in the last 10 years exceeds the amount of acts that occurred in the past 40 years. This is due to the larger amount of attacks that have occurred. There are two types of IA threats:
- Natural
- Hurricane, power shortage, sprinkler failure
- Man made (malicous)
- State sponsored, personal, terrorists, commercial groups
Northeastern University is a national leader in IA. It has been designated by the Department of Homeland Security as one of four universities in the nation as a National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations. Northeastern’s program allows much flexibility for students to customize courses to ensure that they and/or their employer gets exactly what are looking for in the curriculum.
To learn more about Northeastern University – Seattle’s Information Assurance program and to request information click here.