DOD Information Assurance - Information Security Grant Program

DOD Information Assurance - Information Security Grant Program 2013 ASU Application for DOD Information Assurance Scholarship Program Executive Summary Arizona State University (ASU) submits a proposal for the DoD Information Assurance Scholarship Program (IASP), in which ASU has participated since 2008. ASU has established Information Assurance (IA) concentration programs in the Computer Science and Engineering Department (now merged in the School of Computing, Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering) and an Information Assurance Center (IAC) since 2006 to promote and strengthen the educational and research activities in IA. The IA Center has been designated as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education (CAEIAE) and Research (CAE-R) by the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security since 2007 and 2009, respectively. The IA educational and research activities address the broad issues for developing trustworthy information systems and ensuring the quality of information being stored, processed and transmitted by information systems and networks. The proposed program is to produce high-quality skilled IA professionals at ASU who are eager to serve the nation for improving the war fighting capability and protecting the critical information infrastructures, especially in DoD agencies. After extensive publicity and careful evaluation of potential nominees by the IA Centers Scholarship Review Committee, ASU nominates one outstanding Ph.D. student for the DoD IASP. This student is a returning student for the DoD IASP, and has outstanding performance this year and is ready for the internship this coming summer. The nominee will be a great asset to DoD. This proposal also includes a capacity building project, which is in ANNEX II in the type Outreach to Academia with the project title, Establishing Awareness and Training Program for Building a Robust IA Workforce. Security-related incidents have become substantially more diverse in nature. Incident response is now a necessary component of successful computer and network security life cycle. In a broad sense, incident response also includes the investigation of digital evidence, namely computer forensics. This proposed project focuses on the outreach activities in disseminating computer and network forensics materials and training exercises. The objective of this proposed project is to (i) build materials and cloud-based forensics testbed for disseminating computer and network forensics to K-12 students, community college students and regional IA professionals through summer engineering camp(s) and short training course(s) at ASU IA Center; and (ii) enhance our IA curriculum so that a broader range of computer and network forensics can be taught to our undergraduate and graduate students along with research activities to explore advanced forensic techniques.