Tuesday, June 25, 2002

Universities Expand Their Anti-Cyberterrorism Research By FLORENCE OLSEN Carnegie Mellon University has created a multidisciplinary research center to develop new technologies for combating cyberterrorism. The new Center for Computer and Communications Security is one of several recently founded university research centers in the nation for studying how to protect information stored on computers and computer networks. The research at Carnegie Mellon will focus on more than just computers, says Pradeep K. Khosla, a professor of engineering and robotics at the university who is director of the new center. Researchers also will study ways to deploy surveillance robots that can communicate information across the Internet and yet be immune to attack, he says. For example, teams of tiny mobile and stationary robots with embedded sensors might be programmed to collect visual and sensory information, and then to notify authorities if something is amiss. While much of the financing for such research comes from the U.S. Defense Department, banks and insurance companies also have a keen interest in securing electronic information, according to Mr. Khosla. "Universities are beginning to see that there is a void here that they may fill," says Thomas Talleur, a managing director at KPMG LLP, who specializes in computer security. "With the influx of homeland security money, educational institutions are now looking for people who can draw in the money and build the programs ... that will enhance the financial position of the university" and meet the needs of its students, he says. Mr. Khosla says the new research center at Carnegie Mellon is different from other such centers because of its relationship with CERT -- the Computer Emergency Response Team, which the Defense Department sponsors at the university to coordinate system managers' responses to Internet security breaches nationwide. The group's researchers also study Internet security vulnerabilities and publish security alerts. Several CERT researchers are part of the new computer-security center, as are faculty members from Carnegie Mellon's departments of computer science, electrical and computer engineering, and engineering and public policy. In the past couple of years, other centers for research on information security have opened at Dartmouth College and the Johns Hopkins University. The Dartmouth program focuses on potential threats to key information systems and electronic communications in the United States, and on ways the nation can respond and recover if its infrastructure is attacked. The interdisciplinary program at Johns Hopkins focuses on ways to protect the confidentiality of private electronic data and to secure business transactions on the Internet. Carnegie Mellon researchers will study how to make fiber-optic and wireless networks more secure and how to build more secure disk drives, network cards, and processors for computers. "Any device that has input/output [functions], we want to put a security perimeter around it," Mr. Khosla says. "Think of this computer or any system as a castle. As you breach the first wall, there's an inner wall," he says, then another, and another. Along with serving a need for more research and knowledge in those areas, Mr. Khosla says that colleges also must create more degree programs for teaching people how to protect electronic information. Beginning in the fall, he says, Carnegie Mellon will offer a two-year master's-degree program in information networking in collaboration with the Athens Information Technology Institute, in Greece. He says 30 students have enrolled in the program, which includes courses on information security. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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