Cyber Security Industry Alliance Newsletter • Volume 1, Number 11 • July/August 2005

Report on the 9th Annual Colloquium for Information Systems Security Education (CISSE)

Information Assurance Education and Training was the theme of the 9th Annual Colloquium for Information Systems Security Education (CISSE), a weeklong meeting of computer security experts from around the world, held June 6-9 in Atlanta, GA. Each year, CISSE brings together leaders from academia, government, and industry to discuss needs and trends in information assurance. The 400 attendees participated in a wide spectrum of activities, including an information assurance boot camp, paper sessions, and panel discussions on industry’s and government’s research needs, secure coding curriculum, information sharing and vulnerability disclosures, IA curricula in community colleges, and more.

The host for CISSE rotates annually among academia, government, and industry. The host of this year's successful colloquium was Cisco Systems, Inc., and the opening keynote was delivered by Greg Akers, Senior Vice President of Cisco. Other highlights included a series of short courses to help information assurance faculty improve the quality of their courses. Howard Schmidt brought together senior executives from eBay, Motorola, The Global CSO Council, and the Bank of America, and challenged those present to improve the quality of the software development process.

For the first time, the Committee for National Security Systems (CNSS) held their awards ceremony, recognizing institutions that mapped their information assurance curriculum to the National Security Telecommunications Standards and Information Security Instruction (NSTISSI). In addition, the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security recognized universities from around the nation that have qualified as National Centers of Academic Excellence.

CISSE provided a forum to educate industry, government and academia on information security issues, and on each sector’s efforts to address these issues. In addition, participants were given a great opportunity to network with the different sectors, opening the dialogue for partnership and cooperation.

For more information about The Colloquium for Information Systems Security Education, please contact Corey Schou at [email protected] or visit http://ncisse.org. Other computer security material can be found at http://niatec.info.