News

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

CISE Designated as National CAE/IAE

June 4, 2008 - VPAA Zvi Szafran, Dean Han Reichgelt, and Dr. Andy Wang attended the conference organized by the National Security Agency (NSA) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on June 2-4 in Dallas, TX, to receive the National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education certificate in recognition of the university's programs in information assurance. Southern Poly is the fourth university in Georgia to be designated by the NSA as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance. SPSU is designated for academic years 2008-2013.

Pictured from left to right: Mr. David Wennergren, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Information Management and Technology & DoD CIO; Dr. Andy Wang; VPAA Zvi Szafran; Dean Han Reichgelt; and Ms. Brenda Oldfield, Director of Education, Training & Workforce Development, Department of Homeland Security

Thursday, April 17, 2008

CISE Designated as National CAE/IAE

SPSU CISE (Center for Information Security Education) has been designated as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education (CAE/IAE) for academic years 2008-2013 by NSA and DHS. More information about CAE/IAE is available at http://www.nsa.gov/ia/academia/caeiae.cfm.

President Lisa Rossbacher, Governor Purdue, GA Congress Members will soon receive an official letters of notification about this designation.

CAE/IAE is a formal recognition from the U.S. government, as well as opportunities for prestige and publicity, for our role in securing nation's information systems. Now SPSU students are eligible to apply for scholarships and grants through the Department of Defense Information Assurance Scholarship Program and the Federal Cyber Service Scholarship for Service Program (SFS).

Friday, November 16, 2007

2007 SPISA Network Security Competition

The IT Department organized 2007 SPISA Network Security Competition on Saturday, November 10, 2007. The competition focused on the operational aspect of managing and protecting an existing network infrastructure. Student teams were scored based on their ability to detect and respond to outside threats, maintain availability of existing services such as web and database servers, and balance security needs against business needs. The competition involved four main teams: The Academic teams consisted of SPSU students (three students in each team) who attempted to secure a Windows 2003 Active Directory server, a web server, a database server, and a Windows XP client. The Red team was composed of security professionals who tried to attack and exploit the computers of the Academic teams. The White team consisted of judges who kept score during the competition. The Gold team was in charge of facilitating all of the competitors and overseeing the competition.

The competition started at 11:00am and ended at 5pm. The top five winning teams were:

First Place – Team Alpha Squad 7: Brent Page, Michael Galyon, Alex Groden
Second Place – Team NULL: Daniel Perry, Ted Wood, Benjamin V. Yampolsky
Third Place – Team Ninjas: Sandra Hofmann, Rob Little, Yamin Wu
Fourth Place – Team Paladin: Ilyas Takci, Jaime Barrios, Andrew Ward
Fifth Place – Team Warcraft: Xin Lu, Michael Altfield, Min Xia

The judging was based on many different aspects of the competition, with the emphasis being server uptime and website functionality. Other factors went into judging as well, such as superfluous services or potentially malicious files, as well as adding in additional points for protective measures taken.

Gold Team: Ray Walker, Eric John, Len Bledsoe, Daniel Braine, Korey Kolberg, Hugh L Webster, Marilee McClure.

White Team: Andy Wang, Svetlana Peltsverger, Susan Vande Ven, Chih-Cheng Lien, Norris Walker, Ben Burgis, Fengwei Zhang, Yanyan Jin.

We thank the Gold Team and White Team members for their great effort in making this competition a great success. Some pictures about this competition are available at http://it.spsu.edu/spisa/spisa.shtml.

SPISA (Southern Polytechnic Information Security Association) is a student organization established for the purpose of advancing information security knowledge and skills. The current President of SPISA is Eric John, and the faculty advisor is Dr. Andy Wang. More information about SPISA is available at http://it.spsu.edu/spisa/spisa.shtml

SPSU Information Security Lecture Series 2007

With our public lecture series, the CISE aims to promote Information Assurance practice and standards. We hope that the lectures attract students, faculty, and staff, as well as community members.

Wednesday Sept. 26, 2007: 6:00pm to 7:20pm in J-217. Mr. Scott Vincent from Lockheed Martin will speak about computer forensics.

Tuesday, October 9, 2007, 6:00pm - 7:20pm. Speakers: John Lampe and Associates.

Thursday, November 8, 2007, 6:00pm - 7:20pm. Speakers: John Lampe and Associates

Thursday, November 29, 2007, 6:00pm - 7:20pm. Speakers: Dr. Mario Guimaraes and Dr. Meg Murray

More information is available at: http://cise.spsu.edu/events.shtml

Friday, May 18, 2007

CISSP Training Workshop

The IT Department and Center for Information Security Education (CISE), in partnership with the Metro Atlanta Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) chapter, is hosting a 12-week CISSP training workshop this summer. The workshop will be facilitated by the Metro Atlanta ISSA Director of Training, with assistance from CISSP)certified ISSA members, who possess in-depth knowledge within specific (ISC)2 CISSP Common Body of Knowledge (CBK) domains.

The workshop kicked off this evening in J-161. More than 50 people attended the first class today. The workshop is targeting CISSP exam dates in June (June 24, 2007) and September (Sept. 15, 2007) in Atlanta.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

SPSU Team Placed The Fourth Place in SECCDC

Congratulations to the following students from SPISA (Southern Polytechnic Information Security Association), who placed the four place in the second Southeast Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (SECCDC 2007):

Yuta Kitabayashi, Eric John, Korey Kolberg, Mason Cleveland, Daniel Braine, Lee Webster, Ali Khodada

The SECCDC 2007 was held this year in University of North Carolina at Charlotte from March 9 to March 11, 2007. There were nine teams participated in this regional competition: University of Louisville, UNC Charlotte, Mississippi State University, Southern Polytechnic State University, Mercer University, University of South Carolina, UNC Wilmington, Kennesaw State University, and South Florida University.

Here is a picture of some team members.

Monday, October 23, 2006

MSIT Student Won Student Paper Award

At the ACM SIGITE (Special Interests Group in IT Education) 2006 conference from October 18 to 21 in Minneapolis, Mr. Fred Gutierrez, an MSIT student, won the Student Paper Award for his paper entitled "Stingray: A Hands-on Approach to Learning Information Security", which is based on his thesis work on information security research.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

CNSS Certification for SPSU

Dr. Andy Ju An Wang is receiveing the CNSS certificate on stage, representing SPSU, at the 2006 CNSS IA Courseware Evaluation (IACE) Awards Ceremony at Washington, DC, on June 5th, 2006.

Dr. Linton Wells II presented the award. Dr. Wells II serves as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DoD). Also onstage are: Mr. Dick Schaeffer, Director for Information Assurance at NSA; Ms. Nancy Defrancesco, Chair of the CNSS Subcommittee on Telecommunications Security; and Mr. Eustace King, Chair of the CNSS Subcommittee on Information Systems Security.

SPSU Information Security Courses Certified

The information security courses offered by SPSU have been certified as a 100% mapping to the Committee on National Security Systems (CNSS) National Standards 4011 and 4012. The Information Assurance Courseware Evaluation (IACE) Review Committee under the CNSS recently evaluated SPSU’s information security courseware application. The IACE Review Committee has validated that the SPSU courseware meets all of the elements of the CNSS National Training Standards for:

Information Systems Security (INFOSEC) Professionals, NSTISSI-4011, and

Senior Systems Managers, CNSSI-4012.

Dr. Andy Ju An Wang, Chair of the Information Technology Department and Director of the Center for Information Security Education, will represent SPSU to receive recognition and an official certificate during the June 2006 CNSS Awards Ceremony, which will be held at the 10th Colloquium for Information Systems (CISSE) in Washington DC. This certificate, signed by the CNSS Chair, will be valid through June 2009.

SPSU Team Won The Third Place Award in SECCDC

Congratulations to the following CSE students as the third place winning team in the first Southeast Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (SECCDC):

Dave Bachtel, Ryan Cambell, Fred Gutierrez, Yuta Kitabayashi, Mason Cleaveland, Chris Colyar, and Eric John.

The SECCDC was a three-day event in KSU on March 10-12, 2006. Seven teams participated in this competition: Chattahoochee Technical College, Kennesaw State University, Southern Polytechnic State University, University of Alabama, Birmingham, University of Louisville, Kentucky, University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and University of South Florida. The first place and second place winners were University of North Carolina (Charlotte) and University of South Florida, respectively.

More information about this competition and some photos are available at http://it.spsu.edu/CISE/events.shtml.

Information Security Career Day

The Metro Atlanta Chapter of the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) will organize an "Information Security Career Day" on Saturday February 25th, 2006, at Holiday Inn Select. More information is available at: http://it.spsu.edu/CISE/events.shtml.

Top 3 Winning Teams in SPSU Information Security Challenge 2006 (1-11-2006) are:

Team Tiger: Dave Bachtel, Fred Guitierrez, C. J. Shiflett
Team Team_Eagle: Ryan M. Campbell
Team Untitled01: Lee Webster, Yuta Kitabayashi, Mason Cleaveland

Some photos were posted at this page, thanks going to Josh Zhang for taking these pictures.

SPSU Information Security Challenge 2006:

Wednesday January 11, 2006

When: 1pm -- 3pm, Wednesday January 11, 2006.
Where: J-211, Information Security Lab.
Who: Full-time SPSU students, undergraduate and graduate students.
What: Three students work in one team, performing a penetration testing (red team) and a cyber defensing competition (blue team). The network and server configuration will be sent to each team after December 8, 2005.
Registration Deadline: 5:00pm Monday January 9, 2006.
Awards: Top 3 teams will receive certifications, gifts, and will be sent to Southeast Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (March 10-12, 2006).
Judges and Organization Committee: Prof. Bob Brown, Dr. Abdullah Faruque, Prof. Phillip Feibish, Dr. Orlando Karam, Mr. Micah Rowland, Mr. Ray Walker, and Dr. Andy Wang (Chair).

To register, please send email to Dr. Andy Wang (jwang@spsu.edu) with your team name and team members.

Awards Update: Computer Associates will provide cool gifts to the top 3 winning teams! Many thanks go to Mr. Marc Potter, Director of Security Management at Computer Associates for his support. A representative from Computer Associates will meet and speak to the participating students on the day of competition.

Logistics of the Competition

Schedule, Teams, Rules, Prizes, Judges and Organization Committee, etc.

How to Prepare for the Competition

Review questions for paper test only.
For hands-on penetration testing part, more information will be available soon.

More information about this competition will be posted here shortly.

New Concentration in BSIT Program:

Information Security and Assurance Concentration

(Approved by IT faculty on September 20, 2005)

Students graduating with this concentration (track) will have a strong background in fundamental principles and applications of computer security and information assurance, as well as hands-on experience with security tools commonly used in industry.

In order to have an Information Security and Assurance concentration, students should choose 3 courses from the following courses:

IT 4823 Information Security Administration (required)
IT 4825 Ethical Hacking
IT 4833 Wireless Security
IT 4835 Computer Forensics

New IT Course for Spring 2006

IT 4903/6903 - 001 Wireless Security

The exponential growth of wireless networks and mobile devices will make wireless security a top priority in the coming few years.

Learn how to secure enterprise wireless networks and mobile devices.

Taught By: Abdullah Faruque
Times: M W 6:00pm - 7:15pm

New IT Course for Fall 2005

IT 4903-001/6903-002: Ethical Hacking: Network Security and Penetration Testing

This course investigates important skills of a professional hacker and common security challenges that an information security officer will face in his/her work. Topics include vulnerability discovery and risk analysis, internal and external attacks, how malicious hackers attack and exploit system vulnerabilities, penetration testing methods and tools, and the latest countermeasures to secure real systems against real attacks.

Taught By: James Lindley
Times: M W 6:00pm - 7:15pm