The Institute for Cyber Security is an interdisciplinary institute that promotes and encourages cybersecurity awareness and practice, both on campus and off, through teaching, research, and service activities to enhance people’s knowledge of and skills in this important field.
Cybersecurity is broadly defined to include information security, cyber forensics, data quality, data completeness, data accuracy, privacy, and other issues related to storing, transmitting, and sharing data and other information. The Institute involves faculty and students from the colleges of Business; Education and Human Services; Health Sciences; Arts, Humanities, Media, and Public Affairs; and Natural Sciences and Mathematics in the dissemination of knowledge, research, and service projects in the general area of cybersecurity.
The Institute will affiliate itself with faculty and students at other institutions, such as community and other four-year colleges, to share resources and information in this field and promote the concept and practice of ensuring the security and integrity of information.
The Institute for Cyber Security annually secures hundreds of thousands of dollars of federally funded grants to support all of its activities. Moreover, ICS strives to establish leadership in cybersecurity by contributing to various national initiatives intended to improve the nation’s security posture through:
IUP offers a BS in computer science/cybersecurity track and a minor in cybersecurity. The IUP cybersecurity curriculum is an NSA-validated Program of Study (PoS), and IUP is designated as a Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education (CAE-CDE). Scholarships and other unique opportunities are available to our students.
The Institute for Cyber Security, in collaboration with IT Services and other departments, actively promotes cybersecurity awareness throughout the year. Representative activities include Cyber Security Day, Cyber Security Club, National Cyber Security Awareness Month, Outreach to Community Colleges, and interdisciplinary roundtable discussions on issues of national cybersecurity.
Research and Student Work
Faculty affiliated with the Institute are actively involved in research in various cybersecurity, including IoT security, national cybersecurity strategy, intrusion detection, multimedia security, and cloud computing. Students in their studies complete several research papers and presentations on numerous cybersecurity topics.
The Institute for Cyber Security, together with the IUP Library and IT Support Services, provides links to numerous resources on cybersecurity and related fields.