NSF establishes cybersecurity center

Computerworld - Finding ways to keep computers, networks and data more secure from electronic attacks and theft is a key goal of a new cybersecurity Science and Technology Center being established later this year by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
In an announcement yesterday, the Washington-based NSF said the new cybersecurity center will receive about $19 million in funds over five years to help better protect data and hardware from electronic intrusions, fraud and other cybersecurity problems. The center is being established in response to continuing data theft and fraud incidents that threaten computer users and systems.
The cybersecurity center will be led by the University of California, Berkeley, which has suffered its own computer data theft incidents recently. Last month, university officials notified more than 98,000 graduate students and applicants about the theft of a laptop computer on campus containing their names, Social Security numbers and other personal information (see story). Last October, personal information on about 1.4 million recipients and providers participating in a California Department of Social Services program for low-income elderly and disabled state residents was stolen by hackers (see story).
William Noxon, an NSF spokesman, acknowledged the UC-Berkeley incidents, but he said that such problems are occurring in many places. "This is an ongoing problem" that's not a reflection solely on UC-Berkeley, Noxon said.
The center, which is expected to be running later this year, will investigate key issues of computer trustworthiness as cyberattacks continue to increase, according to the NSF. The center's Team for Research in Ubiquitous Secure Technology (TRUST) will address the integration of computing and communication across critical infrastructures in industries such as finance, energy distribution, telecommunications and transportation.
"The trustworthiness is not only an IT issue, but has impacts on other issues," including business, Noxon said.
The center will lead development of technologies and will review software, network security, trusted platforms and applied cryptographic protocols. The center will also look at systems problems through modeling and analysis; development of secure, embedded systems; integration of trusted components; and secure information management software.
Also announced was a second new science and technology center this year that will study how the balance of mass in the polar ice sheets may affect sea level. That center will be based at the University of Kansas. Researchers at the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets will develop models and technology to achieve a better understanding of the mass balance of polar ice sheets and its effect on the rising sea levels that glaciologists have observed in recent years,according to the NSF.
The NSF established the Science and Technology Center program in 1987.

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