Southampton Cyber Security Academy targets security challenges

The CSA is a partnership between the University of Southampton, private companies and Government agencies, and is designed to be a “focal point” for cyber security research and education and outreach.

It is due to formally launch in “early 2016”, reports Southampton, and the first partners of the Academy already signed up are the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), Northrop Grumman and Roke Manor Research.

Professor Vladimiro Sassone, Director of the Academy at the University of Southampton, said:

“The increasingly alarming statistics on cyber-attacks and crime on a variety of targets, such as the recent TalkTalk data hack, make the Academy a timely initiative fully aligned with the UK National Cyber Security Strategy.

“The span of problems is huge, including the protection of critical infrastructures, of industrial and economic processes, of government, businesses and users’ data, privacy and interests. There is a pressing demand for cyber security, and in the next 20 years cyber research will have the same kind of momentous social and economic impact as medical research had in the twentieth century.”

The idea is that the CSA will produce a stream of both new cyber security graduates and train existing workforce through an industry-relevant CPD program in Cyber Security.

Physically, the CSA will be based in the Academic Centre of Excellence for Cyber Security Research (ACE-CSR) at the University of Southampton.

Professor Sassone added:

“With society growing ever more cyber-dependent, cyber security poses tremendous challenges and tremendous opportunities for the cyber industry. It also calls for systematic innovation that will have to pass through research and recruitment of fresh cyber talent. In other words, through a closer interaction between industry and academia.”

For more information about the Academy, see www.southampton.ac.uk/csa