ACADEMIA

The Office of Naval Research has announced third-year funding of almost $5 million for a national cybersecurity research center led by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). The National Center for Advanced Secure Systems Research (NCASSR) was launched in 2003 to conduct research leading to the development of next-generation information security technologies. "A stable secure cyberinfrastructure is vital to our nation’s research enterprise as well as its security and economy," said NCSA Director Thom Dunning. "NCSA brings its significant expertise in networking, security, collaboratories, and data analysis and visualization to bear on this important effort." In its third year, NCASSR will focus on projects in data mining, intrusion detection and analysis, security tools, training, and field testing of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems used in key energy infrastructures, such as electric power grids and water pipelines. NCASSR is led by NCSA, with collaborating partners at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the Naval Postgraduate School, and the Naval Research Laboratory.