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Student Resources from Idaho State University

The worldwide Information Assurance problem will not only be solved by good intentions. It will be solved by having the best-educated students throughout the country as possible. To that end, we make these materials available for student and classroom use.

Additional materials may be found at https://niatec.iri.isu.edu/

Idaho State University was designated a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education by the Federal Government. It was recognized for a significant contribution in meeting the national demand for Information Assurance education, developing a growing number of professionals with Information Assurance expertise in various disciplines, and ultimately contributing to the protection of the national information infrastructure.

Declarations

  • We subscribe to and support the ISC2 (https://www.isc2.org/Ethics) code of ethics.
  • We subscribe to and support the IAP Principles of Behavior.
  • Idaho State University is a founding and sponsoring member of the Colloquium for Information Systems Security Education.
  • This Center has been active in development of training standards associated with both the National Institute of Standards Publication 800-16, National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE), and the Committee on National Security Systems (CNSS) 4011, 4012, 4013, 4014, 4015, and 4016 documents.
  • The Information Security Library is maintained by Informatics Research Institute at Idaho State University.
  • The words and definitions contained in Glossary are taken from numerous sources. These words and definitions are the responsibilities of those authors as a representation of the computer security world. The words and definitions of the Glossary are not reflective of an opinion of any Federal or State agency, Idaho State University, or of the Simplot Decision Center.
  • We currently operate and administer to a highly available clustered environment.  Created by the students of the program, this configuration allows each student to gain experience with virtualization technology as well as the creation, deployment, and administration of various server/host platforms.
  • In addition to our lab environment, we have created and operate a “battlefield” playground. This separate virtualized environment is constructed of multiple host servers and a sizeable Networked Attached Storage (NAS) with supporting networking infrastructure to allow the National Information Assurance Training and Education Center (NIATEC) program to host Cyber Defense Competitions. Students create virtualized environments, along with their supporting scenarios, to host a multi-school red team/blue team competitions.
  • We utilize an air-gapped environment dubbed “Pandora” for researching and observing malware and other hazardous technologies. This configuration of servers and networking equipment allows us to research the behaviors and effects of various technologies in a sandboxed environment.
  • Our lab environment boasts current, and well equipped, workstations on robust network infrastructures with internet and access to a vast research repository. In addition, the lab has an available separate “black” network that is air-gapped for the purpose of researching and applying a more hazardous security testing.
  • Created by the NIATEC students, our Security Operations Center (SOC) environment is an ongoing research project that simulates the US Federal Government’s application of “continuous monitoring”. We leverage multiple monitoring and analysis tools to produce a custom-designed dashboard that displays activity across the network, as well as a system of prioritizing vulnerabilities by a perceived threat. Current research is being done to include big data in an effort to make the model more forward-looking and less reactionary.
  • Nessus will be integrated into a custom dashboard built by the NIATEC students to report and track vulnerabilities across NIATEC networks; triaging any incidents and give students learning experiences and familiarity with network intrusion, reporting, and analysis tools.
NIATEC National Science Foundation Information Assurance Directorate Department of Homeland Security CISSE Scholarship For Service