The mission of the Center will be to provide a forum for the collaboration of professors, professionals, industries, and students. A mission of the center is to identify, address, and promote visions and solutions for issues of information assurance and cybersecurity. The center will produce and be a catalyst for research, invention, innovation, education, public awareness, entrepreneurship, and economic growth in the state of Washington. Its effort will assist with sustaining the vitality of existing industry, as well as to attract and develop new industry. The Center will emphasize participation of underrepresented groups especially women and people of color, in the breadth of secure computing and data integrity, and to promote the practice of emerging security standards.

Vision

The Center will be a Pacific Northwest research, education, industry and government community that provides innovation and leadership in the protection of critical public and private information infrastructure, and provides well educated information assurance and cybersecurity at all professional levels.

Goals

The Center’s focus will promote the following activities:

• Research by and for collaborating universities, colleges, industries, and government units and individuals,
• A breadth of offerings of diverse and complementary academic university programs of study at both undergraduate & graduate levels,
• Discriminating technical certification and training programs provided by community and technical colleges.
• Workshops, conferences, and lecture series provided by and for practicing security professionals through professional continuing education units,
• Unique shared comprehensive facilities including computer security forensic laboratories,
• Funding to attract and retain outstanding faculty and research expertise,
• Funding for student scholarships, particularly targeting underrepresented groups
• “Scholarship for Service” programs that fund education for and with commitment for employment after graduation,
• Internships that match students with professionals, organizations, and innovative projects in the area,
• Repository of state of the art information assurance & cybersecurity resources,
• Entrepreneurship and incubator collaboration and support,
• Demonstration of best practices in information assurance & cybersecurity.

The Center will provide and/or encourage education, research, and support in a breadth of areas of information assurance & cybersecurity, including:

• Security Risk Assessment and Management
• Policies, Laws, and Rights management
• Security Awareness Issues and Processes
• Security Tools and Applications
• Trusted Interactions and Data Gathering
• Assurable Software and Architecture
• Network and Enclave Security
• Incident Detection and Response
• Incident Forensics
• Cryptology