Purdue News

December 11, 2000 Alliance formed to protect Indiana's 'infostructure' WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The formation of an alliance to promote Indiana's information security was announced today (Monday, 12/11) during a news conference at the Purdue Research Park. Purdue University's Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS), eSMART Corp. of Indianapolis, and the Indiana CPA Society are joining forces to safeguard valuable information as it flows through Hoosier computers. "Indiana's economy benefits in many ways when research centers and companies in the private sector work together," said Purdue President Martin C. Jischke. "Not only will this strategic alliance bring new, cutting-edge network security technology to the marketplace, it also will spur the creation of high-tech jobs in a rapidly growing field." eSMART, Indiana's first technology company formed to provide Internet security off-site, plans to hire more than 100 employees in the next year. eSMART will perform audits of the Internet connections of businesses and governments, and provide round-the-clock systems monitoring to prevent attacks from hackers. Even though the Internet security field is one of the fastest growing segments of the information technology industry, eSMART is among only a handful of such companies in the country. The field of Internet security continues to grow in direct correlation to increased loss due to computerized assaults. A study by Price Waterhouse Coopers and Information Week Research predicts these assaults will have cost businesses $1.6 trillion globally in 2000 – more than $266 billion in the United States. "The need for an Indiana player in the network security market is evidenced by a projected growth in the market of $11.7 billion in four years," said Paul Overhauser, eSMART chief administrative officer. "CERIAS is the world's foremost university center for multidisciplinary research and education in areas of information security. Bringing the research, training and business realms together will build upon Indiana's status as a worldwide focal point for Internet security." In 1998, Indiana received national attention with Purdue's formation of CERIAS, a center formed to conduct research to address network security, communications security, policy development, disaster recovery, investigation of computer crime, employee training and supervision, and protection against defective software. CERIAS is located on the West Lafayette campus, with an annex in the Purdue Research Park. The center has formed partnerships with more than 25 information technology companies including Cisco Systems Inc., Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp., and Sun Microsystems Inc. "Occurrences of industrial espionage, actions of disgruntled current or former employees, and malicious and frivolous hacking are all growing as fast as, if not faster than, the exploding use of the Internet," said Eugene Spafford, director of CERIAS. "We want to be sure Internet users understand what they need to do to protect their sites, systems and data. Unfortunately, there is a critical shortage of sound technology and well-trained analysts in this field." As part of the alliance, CERIAS and eSMART first will codevelop curriculum to teach skills needed to conduct Internet security audits for business and government. Purdue plans to provide continuing education credits to those receiving the CERIAS-developed training from eSMART. eSMART will provide training in network monitoring for state employees, and the Indiana CPA Society will provide these courses to its members. "An emerging trend in the CPA profession is assessment of businesses' Internet and network security systems by certified public accountants," said Gary Bolinger, president and CEO of Indiana CPA Society. "Because of these new assessment services, we want to be sure we have access to the most advanced information security technology." As part of the alliance's long-term goals, the group plans to seek funding to develop several CERIAS-designed, state-of-the-art network monitoring facilities throughout Indiana, the first to be located in Purdue Research Park. These monitoring facilities would provide enough capacity to enable the alliance to conduct network monitoring for Indiana state government networks, as well as be compatible with the Internet-2 hub at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis. Internet-2 provides a high-speed, high-bandwidth Internet infrastructure, and facilitates the heavy computer traffic between educational institutions throughout the state. Sources: Eugene Spafford, director, CERIAS, (765) 494-7825; spaf@purdue.edu Paul Overhauser, chief administrative officer, eSMART, (317) 299-2525; overhauserp@eSMARTcorp.com Writer: Jeanine Smith, (765) 496-3133; jeanine@purdue.edu Additional contact: Dave Shatkowski, vice president of communications, Indiana CPA Society, (317) 726-5022; dshatkowski@incpas.org To the Purdue News and Photos Page Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu