City University creates a new Centre for Cyber and Security Sciences

London's City University has announced the formation of a new Centre for Cyber and Security Sciences. The centre is intended to provide research and consultancy in order to make the web, and as a consequence, society, safer from the threats posed by state-sponsored cyber terrorism and cyber crime. Part of the School of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, the centre draws on the experience of several departments in the university, covering: network security, computer security, cryptography, software reliability, information security, human and physical security, and the legal frameworks covering security. The announcement lists several areas of research to be conducted by the centre; these range from cyber crime and terrorism and cryptography to cyber and privacy laws.

The centre will be collaborating on the newly launched project of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), known as The Uncertainty of Identity. This project will look at the relationship between a person's real and virtual identities and looks to address some of the security problems faced by the government. It is intended to improve the ability to "characterise and validate an individual's identity, to infer more informative profiles of individuals and groups that bridge the real and virtual domains, and to document and manage the uncertainties inherent in these tasks." Other institutions involved in the project are the UK Home Office, the Computer Science department of St. Andrews, the Geography department of University College London and Purdue University in the United States. The project is receiving £1.2 million funding from the EPSRC of which City will receive £450,000.

(ehe)