Sen. Leahy announces creation of National Cyber-Center at Norwich

By William Knox
Norwich Guidon Managing Editor

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), along with Norwich University President Richard Schneider, announced on Thursday the creation of a national center for the study of counter-terrorism and cyber-crime at Norwich University.

The center, which has received a federal charter under legislation passed by the senator, will become one of seven national centers authorized to receive grants from the U.S. Department of Justice to advance national domestic preparedness objectives.

"This new center will marshal expertise," Leahy said. "It will become a perpetual engine for developing new tools and tactics against cyber-crime, and through the center Vermont's contributions to domestic preparedness will help the entire nation."

According to the university press release, the center will be a non-profit educational institution with the stated goal of enhancing, "the United States' ability to respond to terrorist and cyber-crime threats directed toward the nation and its allies."

The center, which will be housed on the university's Northfield campus, builds on pre-existing relationships with the National Guard Information Operations Schoolhouse and the university's role as a National Security Agency Center of Excellence in Information Assurance Education, "addressing a critical need of the nation's information technology infrastructure," according to the university press release.

The center will serve as a national resource and research facility for the identification and analysis of new technologies for use in the war against terrorism and associated cyber-crime. It will participate in threat warning and data-collection that will provide recommended solutions concerning terrorism and cyber-crime directed at the United States and its allies.

"This national center for counter-terrorism and cyber-crime is going to take the resources and the expertise of the federal government, the academic community, and the private sector," Leahy said. "It's going to help us understand terrorism and to combat computer crime."

Leahy included the center's authorization in the new Justice Department's authorization bill - the first new charter for the Justice Department in more than two decades - which cleared Congress Oct. 3 and now awaits President Bush's signature.

"The threats have changed greatly in 183 years," Schneider said. "They changed dramatically in the last four or five. Norwich has been on a path for about four and a half years to put major pieces in place for us to secure our future as an institution and also to prepare our students for the future they're going to have to lead the nation through."

According to the President, the university made major changes in the curriculum as well as building "wonderful new facilities" in support of the new programs.

"Two years ago, we started to put in place all the things that were necessary for the academic program here," Schneider said. "The National Security Agency named Norwich as an academic center of excellence in information assurance.

"All of a sudden you started hearing Norwich University at the same time people were talking about MIT, Stanford, Syracuse, some smaller schools that you may have heard about before," Schneider said.

According to Schneider, this endorsement was a crucial step in the development of the programs, both for the legitimacy it lent to them and the financial backing of the government.

"That was a critical part for us, because that let us then compete for NSA scholarships," Schneider said. "There are 12 students right now, and we have two of them at Norwich who are funded by that agency, and faculty research funded by those grants that are now coming to Norwich, to study firewalls, for example, and information assurance issues."

In August, Sen. Leahy announced a $264,000 National Security Agency cyber-security grant to "fund education, training, and research programs to protect the nation's critical infrastructures," that included funds for faculty and student research in information assurance and two Department of Defense Information Assurance Scholarships to Norwich senior John Cappellano and junior Natalie DesLandes.

The $64,220 in the scholarship provides for the students' tuition, fees, books and a $10,000 stipend. Each scholarship recipient will be required to complete an internship and work assignment with the Department of Defense as a civilian for agencies falling within the DoD, which include the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Department of the Air Force, and the Department of the Army.

The additional $200,000 awarded to Norwich will be used for the development of curriculum in the areas of Cryptology, Cyber-Ethics, Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition Systems, as well as defraying some of the cost of Norwich's annual E-Protect IT conference, providing for professional development of faculty, and supporting student/faculty research projects in firewall research and computer forensics.

According to Schneider, the center will provide the framework for the development of Norwich's programs.

"This piece of the national center brings us, not only the reputation, but the framework in which to carry out major pieces of research and education that we've never been capable of doing before," Schneider said.

The University press release indicated that the center will also help the local economy, as the new center will require an anticipated 25-35 research and technology experts during the first year of operation, with more personnel being added as the center grows.

In addition to the technical specialists the center will bring, service companies holding contracts with the center may be required to secure branch locations in the area, "depending on their work."

At present, industry partnerships have already been established with ManTech International Corp., a leading provider of critical national defense information technology for the intelligence community and the Department of Defense, and Electronic Warfare Associates, Inc., an international provider of information technology products and services to government and commercial clients.

The industry partnerships will help the center complete projects for clients, which will include both government and private agencies. The revenue generated by additional projects will add to the $5 million in contract work already secured for the center once it opens.

"I'm proud to be here," Leahy said of Norwich. "I think of the tradition of pride and competence that Norwich has fostered, and I know that this very, very special place will deliver, not only for our state, but for the United States, providing for our homeland defense and also for the freedom of the rest of the world."

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