From: InfoSec News (alertsinfosecnews.org)
Date: Wed Mar 21 2007 - 00:25:19 CDT

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http://www.itnewsonline.com/showstory.php?storyid=9064

IT News Online Staff
2007-03-20

NASSCOM, the premier trade body and "voice" of the IT software and
services industry, in association with Chandigarh Administration has
opened the Regional Cyber Security and Research Center (RCSRC) at
Chandigarh.

NASSCOM will serve as a technical consultant for this initiative while
the funding will be jointly provided by the Department of Information
Technology and the Chandigarh Administration through Society for
Promotion of Information Technology (SPIC), Chandigarh.

RCSRC is the first cyber security research center in the country that
will engage a multidisciplinary team of researchers and faculty to
conduct specialist research in the areas of information and cyber
security and performance optimization in Networking in a cost effective
manner. The team will conduct studies and organize discussion platforms
to educate and enable the students to prevent and handle the new age
transgressions. The research work undertaken and data collected here
will also serve as primary source of information for the entire cyber
security focused research community.

Kiran Karnik, President, NASSCOM, said, "Information security has been a
key focus area for the Indian IT industry. NASSCOM in association with
various stakeholders like the union government, state administrations,
academia, security professionals and the law enforcement has been taking
steps that will ensure a strong security environment for Indian IT. We
are very pleased to be associated with the inauguration of the Regional
Cyber Security and Research Center, and are hopeful that this will
further raise the bar for India being at the forefront in identifying
possible concern areas and spearheading new methods to curtail any
security loopholes."

"Drawing on the strengths from Computer Science, Engineering and IT, the
center will serve as a valuable regional and national asset for the
development of advanced security solutions, critical infrastructure
protection, emergency readiness and response technology consolidating
India's position with respect to information security," added Karnik.

General S.F. Rodrigues, Administrator, Chandigarh and Governor of
Punjab, said, "Punjab with its encouraging policies is fast emerging as
the most favored business and investment destination for IT and BPO
companies. On this backdrop, it has become imperative for the Chandigarh
administration to take the lead in research to create a technology rich
environment conducive for constructive discussions and innovative ideas
for further strengthening the security environment in the country."

The initiative is backed by the Board of Mentors that include prominent
names from the IT industry, academia, defense services and Chandigarh
administration such as Dr. Sundeep Oberoi, Principal Consultant,
Information Security, TCS; Arun Seth, Chairman, British Telecom India;
Dr. Bhaskaran Raman, Assistant Professor, IIT Kanpur; Professor Rudra
Pratap, Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Sciences-Bangalore;
Nandkumar Saravade, Director Cyber Security and Compliance, NASSCOM; Dr.
Prem Chand, Executive Director, Tech Mahindra; and Major General D.V.
Kalra, Chief Signal Officer, HQ, Western Command, Chandimandir.

RCSRC is a security research center setup at the Punjab Engineering
College. The center's mission will be to encourage, promote, facilitate
and execute interdisciplinary research in areas related to the nexus of
the society and the digital world.

The center will serve as a platform to:

- Aid and advise organizations in cyber security policy enforcements,
  conduct of security audits and incident handling.
- Provide consultancy to various IT organizations and police departments
  on the secure design networks including deployment of security
  administration software like intrusion detection, management software
  for vulnerability checking, protection against port scanners, password
  crackers, etc.
- Educate and train manpower such as police, network users, IT
  professionals and network security specialists in the cyber security
  policies and related skills so it is integrated as a part of their
  jobs.
- Facilitate research work for undergraduate and postgraduate students
  and researchers in the concerned areas.
- Disseminate research results through journal and conference
  publications, technical reports and public domain software.
- Create an online knowledge repository in the form of Web/FTP server
  consisting of information in the above mentioned areas.
- Undertake projects with Government of India, NASSCOM, IT Industry in
  collaboration with academia.
- Conduct interdisciplinary training programs for state departments, IT
  industry and academia.

The primary focus of RCSRC is to conduct high quality research in the
general areas of security and performance optimization in Networking, at
affordable costs. The center will be a platform to provide defense
against threats such as information warfare. It will carry out studies
and hosts seminars that move society towards rational and informed
discussion of these critical changes. The center's mission is to
encourage, promote, facilitate and execute interdisciplinary research in
areas related to the nexus of society and the Internet. The research
work to be undertaken in the center and data collected here will benefit
the entire research community.

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