May 22, 2014 | Eli Freund - School of Engineering

CHASE Collaboration With Comcast Announced At National Conference

The announcement of a collaborative effort with Comcast and a workshop that brought together experts on cybersecurity made April a busy month for the Center for Hardware Assurance, Security and Engineering.   The workshop, which took place April 9 and April 10, included talks on various security matters, including innovative technologies for hardware security, Trojan detection and prevention […]

The announcement of a collaborative effort with Comcast and a workshop that brought together experts on cybersecurity made April a busy month for the Center for Hardware Assurance, Security and Engineering.

 

The workshop, which took place April 9 and April 10, included talks on various security matters, including innovative technologies for hardware security, Trojan detection and prevention and hardware security assessment. On the second day of the workshop, CHASE and Comcast officials announced that they are creating a cybersecurity research program to shield its systems against Internet attacks and information breaches.

 

The collaborative effort, to be known as the Center of Excellence for Security Innovation, will be located in the Information Technologies Engineering building. Combining expertise from CHASE with Comcast’s leadership in Internet systems security, the goal of the multimillion-dollar, multi-year agreement is to conduct research in hardware security and develop systems for detecting malicious attacks, unauthorized access and faulty or counterfeit products. Also, as part of the collaboration, tools will be developed to protect computer chips and other components vital to Internet broadband systems.

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“This new Center of Excellence for Security Innovation further establishes UConn as a national leader in hardware security analysis and technology,” says Kazem Kazerounian, dean of UConn’s School of Engineering. “It is yet another example of how academic-industry partnerships can advance science, improve people’s lives, and create a new generation of highly-skilled workers prepared to resolve the technological challenges facing our nation and world today.”

 

Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen was on hand for the announcement. He stressed the need for efforts such as the CHASE-Comcast collaboration, noting that there were 427 cyber security breaches in Connecticut last year, threatening the personal information of 580,000 Connecticut residents, or more than 16 percent of the state’s population. Nationally, recent cyber threats include the recent theft of target customers’ credit card records of Target, as well as the “heartbleed bug,” which exploited vulnerabilities in encryption tools used to secure passwords and other information.

The workshop included two keynote speakers, two panels, and 26 invited talks, and more than 20 posters were presented by CHASE students. Approximately 200 people attended the workshop from industry, government, and CHASE/UCONN. Key attendees included those from DARPA, The U.S. Department of Defense, the National Security Agency, the Air Force Research Laboratory, the U.S. Department of Energy, Honeywell, Boeing, Xilinx, IBM, Intel, Raytheon, BAE Systems, and more.