HU HOSTS INFORMATION ASSURANCE SYMPOSIUM

Hampton, VA - Hampton University will host the Annual Information Assurance Symposium with the theme, "Building Information Assurance Capacity and Improving Infrastructure at Minority Serving Institutions" on Feb. 28 in the Student Center.

"The compromise of our information systems has become more pervasive since the proliferation of networked computer systems," said Robert Willis, chair of the department of computer science. "Consider that much of our personal, industrial and governmental information may be stored on thousands of computers around the world. The risks to these systems are enormous."

Willis also said that there aren't enough professionals available to deal with the safe development of information systems and the proliferating number of people attempting to compromise these systems.

"The main focus is to provide faculty and IT (Information Technology) professionals at minority institutions with information needed to build critical Information Assurance infrastructure," Willis said.

The symposium will also provide an interface with governmental agencies and information assurance research institutions. The purpose of the symposium is to also serve as a model for other regional workshops for minority serving institutions.

Presenters at the symposium will include Richard Pethia, director of the CERT Centers at Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute; Watts S. Humphrey, founder of the Software Process Program of the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University; Rodney Petersen, policy analyst with EDUCAUSE and the Project Director for the EDUCAUSE/Internet2 Computer and Network Security Task Force; Noopur Davis is a senior member of the technical staff at the Software Engineering Institute; Shawn Hernan, member of the technical staff in the CERT Coordination Center and Dr. Tom Longstaff, a senior member of the technical staff in the Networked Systems Survivability Program at the Software Engineering Institute.

Sponsors of the event include Carnegie Mellon University 's Software Engineering Institute, Advanced Networking for Minority Serving Institutions, the Institute for Infrastructure and Information Assurance at James Madison University and the Association of Computer and Information Science Engineering Departments at Minority Institutions.