Security | News

USC Joins Cybersecurity Research Consortium

• By Leila Meyer
• 05/21/13

The University of Southern California (USC) is the newest member of the Northrop Grumman Cybersecurity Research Consortium, a partnership between academia and industry working together to increase Northrop Grumman Corporation's technological capabilities in the area of cybersecurity. USC was invited to join the group based on its leadership in big data, computer science, and informatics.

USC will be working with the consortium to develop solutions to cybersecurity challenges specifically related to big data. As part of the consortium, USC's Viterbi School of Engineering will "research issues surrounding security and trust in big data storage and processing, especially when managed by highly distributed systems," according to a news release from Northrop Grumman.

"Our team has in-depth knowledge of not only the scientific foundations of truly trustworthy high-assurance platforms, but also vast experience with practical deployment of focused government environments," said Roger Schell, senior computer scientist with USC's Information Sciences Institute (ISI), in a prepared statement. "We will expand and enhance these prior results into much broader and more important areas, such as securing big data for disparate domains in the cloud."

The consortium was created in December 2009 with three member universities: Carnegie Mellon University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Purdue University. USC is the first additional university to join the consortium since its inception. "Members of the consortium coordinate research projects, share information and best practices, develop curricula, write joint case studies and other publications, and provide numerous learning opportunities and applications for students and the defense community overall," according to Northrop Grumman.

Further information about the Northrop Grumman Cybersecurity Research Consortium can be found at northropgrumman.com.