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IUP will present several speakers, including representatives from the FBI and the National Security Agency and cybersecurity specialists, during Information Assurance Day on November 10, 2011.

This fourth annual event is free and open to the community. All presentations will take place in the Hadley Union Building Delaware Room.

Information assurance blends the disciplines of criminology and computer science and addresses the issues of information operations that protect and defend information and information systems by ensuring availability, integrity, authentication, confidentiality, and non-repudiation.

Rose Shumba, a professor in the Computer Science Department, is the director of IUP's Institute for Information Assurance.

IUP is one of only seven institutions in ϳԹ and fewer than one hundred universities in the nation selected as a national Center for Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education by the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. IUP was one of the first universities in the nation to integrate the disciplines of criminology and computer science to support an academic program in information assurance.

The program opens at 8:40 a.m. with welcome remarks by Deanne Snavely, dean of the College of Natural Science and Mathematics.

Presentations are as follows:

  • 9:00 a.m., “Four Essential Requirements for Securing Your Enterprise,” by David C. Brown, president and founder of Business CyberSecurity, Inc. Brown is the inventor of Business CyberSecurity's business information framework model and analysis methodologies.
  • 9:45 a.m., “Making Sense of the Security Data Generated by Multiple Devices Using Open Community Software to Identify Network Based Security Risks to Sensitive Information,” by Greg Porter, founder of Allegheny Digital, with Matthew Stewart, director of information security at Robert Morris University and an adjunct professor teaching computer security, intrusion detection, and computer forensics. Allegheny Digital is a Western ϳԹ-based information security company specializing in network infrastructure security, incident response, enterprise risk management and managed security services.
  • 11:00 a.m., “Red Teaming Approaches, Rationales, Engagement Risks, and Methodologies,” by Mark Yanalitis, Highmark, Pittsburgh. This program will discuss how, in the rush to get on the target, engagement preparation and thorough reconnaissance often becomes abbreviated. Missed intelligence often leads to prolonged engagement timelines, susceptibility to cognitive biases, missed opportunities, attack deceleration, and an over-reliance on automated tooling logic. Yanalitis, who has held numerous security positions in the private and public sector, is the founder of the LinkedIn Open Source Intelligence Professionals Group, an international professional group dedicated to open source intelligence methods and tradecraft.
  • 1:00 p.m., “What Keeps Me Up at Night?” a discussion focusing on Botnets, Malware, cybercrime and the criminal underground, presented by Jason Pearson and Keith Mularski, special agents with the FBI, Pittsburgh Division. After joining the FBI in 2009, Pearson was assigned to the Cyber Squad and High Tech Crimes Task Force and investigates national security and criminal cybercrime offenses. Joining the FBI's Cyber Division in 2005, Mularski was assigned to the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance in Pittsburgh and worked with private industry subject matter experts on a number of joint cybercrime initiatives. He worked undercover to penetrate cyber underground groups, which resulted in the dismantling of the Darkmarket criminal carding forum in October 2008. He received the FBI Director's Award for Excellence in Outstanding Cyber Investigation in 2010.
  • 2:00 p.m., Harley Parkes, a member of the Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service and chief of the Mission and Technical Vulnerability office in the Information Assurance Directorate of the National Security Agency, will give a presentation on a topic to be announced. The MTV office conducts communications security monitoring and technical security evaluations of U.S. government communications and operations.
  • 3:00 p.m., “Information Assurance, an IT Audit Perspective,” by Douglas Brown, senior vice president and IT audit senior manager for First Commonwealth Financial Corporation, Indiana. In his years of working in the information technology auditing field, Brown, an IUP alumnus, has created unique audit tests to verify data integrity and has conducted numerous audits of technology systems.

For more information about Information Assurance Day or information assurance at IUP, contact Shumba at shumba@iup.edu or 724-357-3166.