Informatics

About CIS

The Importance of Information Security

Information Security means protecting both information and information systems against unauthorized access while ensuring privacy, availability, and integrity. Every organization needs policies and strategies to combat unauthorized attempts to access data. It is essential to remember that security is a process, not a product. No piece of hardware or software can make your organization secure. Security is achieved through proper policy, secure authentication, effective access control, good design, and verified implementation of systems.

Security is a rapidly changing dynamic field. New technologies, such as cloud computing and mobile applications, create new vulnerabilities, while attackers continually develop new attacks on well known technologies as organizations learn how to secure them against older attacks. The key to dealing with security is risk management, which requires us to understand the impact of current threats as well as the cost and effectiveness of countermeasures.

What are the needs?

Organizations are becoming more dependent on their technology infrastructure for data storage and day-to-day activity than ever before. Therefore, striking a balance between sufficient security protection and adequate budget expenditures is critical. As technology evolves organizations are constantly presented with new challenges, forcing them to evaluate and re-evaluate their information security requirements. With new threats appearing every day, organizations can benefit from having a trusted partner with knowledge of the most current security research and development. Taking advantage of the latest information on security risks and solutions allows organizations to plan for a secure future.

The Purpose

Organizations need to protect themselves from security risks and threats. Staying current with recent developments and predicting future security needs is key to any successful organization.

Most organizations do not have effective disaster recovery and business continuity plans. In the event of a disaster, few of the organizations without plans would survive, much less recover critical data. Having a detailed disaster recovery and business continuity plan is crucial. These plans can be used to guide an organization through a disaster and back on the road to success.

A Focus on Collaboration

The Center for Information Security (CIS) in the College of Informatics at NKU is a multidisciplinary resource for information security research and education. The mission of CIS is to advance the state of information security research and education and to serve as a collaborative source of security expertise to the local and global communities. The Center actively engages industry leaders and thought experts on the latest security trends. Faculty, staff, and students contribute to a wide array of projects and training for the success of businesses and academia in this technology sector. Through extensive research, application development, and technology collaboration, the Center is developing and distributing methods and technologies that solve information security problems. In addition to working with individual organizations on projects, the CAI hosts several events, such as an Annual Security Symposium, Speaker Sessions, workshops and other conferences on a wide variety of information security topics.

The Building Blocks of Success

The College of Informatics at Northern Kentucky University is leading collaborative efforts to discover opportunities for improvement in the security space. Through the CAI, and other programs, the College provides a forum for informed decision making for IT executives and management. As our network of security resources grow, our ability to recognize risks, find vulnerabilities, and explore underutilized product features, increases. College of Informatics students learn desired skills in security and are continually exposed to business through experiential learning opportunities. The participation of the College’s Department of Computer Science in the Center for Information Security keeps curriculum current to meet the demands of the changing security needs.

The CIS offers peer-to-peer, vendor-neutral security management collaboration, participation in security research, next generation security thought leadership programs, seminars, symposiums and conferences focused on Information Security, SANS skills testing site, disaster recovery & business continuity plan training, and Network & Software Security Assessments.

Shape the Future of Technology

The Infrastructure Management Institute and the College of Informatics invite you and your organization to engage with the Center for Information Security. To discover how can contribute and benefit from this platform of collaboration please visit the CAI website, http://cai.nku.edu, or call 859.572.7610.