In support of information assurance studies, the University established the NSU Institute for Information Assurance Research (IIAR) in 2003.
Dr. Gregory Patrick, former Assistant Professor of Computer Science, was the IIAR center's first Director and he led the effort to create an Information Assurance Track within the MS degree in Computer Science program. In 2008 Dr. Jonathan M. Graham assumed leadership and led a successful effort to have the NSU cybersecurity coursework (B.S. Computer Science IA track) mapped to CNSS standards 4011 and 4012. In 2009 Dr. Graham and his team were successful in having NSU generated as a NSA/DHS CAE in Cyber Defense. During the accreditation process the name was changed from IIAR to IA-REDI. The following six years resulted in millions of dollars in cybersecurity grants, many acolades from cybersecurity peers and a January 2015 visit by Vice President Biden to announce the award of a 25 million dollar Department of Energy grant.
In the summer of 2015 we received our re-designation award and swept all major awards at the award ceremony at the CISSE conference. The center continues to grow in strength with increasing grant funding, cybersecurity publications, highly sought after graduates and broader outreach. Initially the Computer Science department was the main driving efforts behind the NSU Cybersecurity story, but nurturing efforts have resulted in a vibrant research and educational effort in sociology and a master’s degree in cyber psychology. Currently we are looking forward to a renewal of our accreditation and an increased cybersecurity contributions.