New Major Force In CyberSecurity Research

New Major Force In CyberSecurity Research

cybersecurity

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The Canadian Institute for Cybersecurity opened at the University of New Brunswick (UNB) recently with more than $4.5 million in funding and the establishment of a research partnership with the global technology firm, IBM.

The Canadian Institute for Cybersecurity will train highly skilled cybersecurity professionals and provide leading-edge research into one of the most pressing issues facing society today.

UNB president, Dr. Eddy Campbell, told UCB’s website: “The Canadian Institute for Cybersecurity is a culmination of more than 15 years of successful innovation and research in cybersecurity at the University of New Brunswick. The creation of the institute allows us to forge an even more crucial role in developing security measures necessary to protect modern critical infrastructure in Canada and beyond.”

The research lab at the university is already renown for its production of the UNB ISCX dataset, a benchmark to validate research results or techniques, with over 800 universities, businesses and research institutes using the data set to evaluate their work.

Aiming to transform its economic landscape toward a knowledge-based economy, New Brunswick is strategically focusing on innovation in cybersecurity. The worldwide cybersecurity market is large and has been steadily growing during the last few years, with market sizing estimates ranging from $75 billion in 2015 to $170 billion by 2020. The size of the market is a response to the rising global cost of cyberattacks, which is expected to grow to $2.1 trillion by 2020. As a result, there is intense interest in the development of new-generation cybersecurity solutions.

Dr. Ali Ghorbani, Canada Research Chair in Cybersecurity at the University of New Brunswick and Dean of the faculty of computer science at the university, serves as Director of the institute.

“The Canadian Institute for Cybersecurity is poised to alter the cyberwarfare landscape by propelling research, training and collaboration with governments and industry to new levels,” said Dr. Ghorbani.

IBM is the institute’s first and currently main R&D partner, aiding with contributions such as technical and management resources to provide project oversight and mentorship for students.

Since 2000, UNB has played an important role in the success of cybersecurity research and innovation in New Brunswick. Today, UNB’s faculty of computer science has by far the largest network security research group in the nation and is poised to seize the opportunity to lead this effort through the newly established Canadian Institute for Cybersecurity.

The institute, housed at existing facilities on UNB’s campus, is a comprehensive multidisciplinary training, research and development and entrepreneurial unit that will operate in close collaboration with researchers in the social sciences, business, computer science, engineering, law, and science, as well as other national and international research centres.