One FBI estimates puts the cost of cyber-crime in 2004 at about $400 billion. Even more significant, however, is that if on-line criminal activities continue to grow unchecked, confidence in the safety and reliability of the Internet will erode, leading to a reversal of the growth of e-commerce that we have seen in the last decade.
CATT received funding from the office of New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research (NYSTAR) to embark on a mission to create an internationally recognized center that will serve as an engine for innovation and enterprise for the creation and commercialization of technologies for cyber-crime prevention, detection and attribution. Polytechnic already has a very strong program in cyber-security and is ideally positioned to leverage its resources in this area to develop a center of international stature.
As part of this effort CATT will:
1. Provide seed funding to academia-industry research and development partnership projects that aim to create new technologies and tools for the prevention, detection and attribution of cyber-crime.
2. Provide an infrastructure in partnership with Polytechnic’s Brooklyn Enterprise for Science and Technology (BEST) incubator to facilitate quick commercialization and deployment of new technologies.
3. Provide a laboratory for small businesses in NY State to research, test and prototype new designs and products and showcase them to potential customers.
4. Establish a forum that brings together law enforcement, academia, small businesses and large corporations for information sharing on the problems, experiences, expertise and research needs of each community.
5. Create a training program that develops a workforce with a good understanding of tools and techniques for combating cyber-crime.
6. Offer free services to New York City small businesses to help them combat cyber-crime. These free services will include onsite network security assessment, white papers and educational materials.
Among the specific projects being planned are:
1. Commercialization via BEST for Polytechnic’s successful research in network forensics and cyber-attack early warning systems.
2. Commercialization via BEST for a system to detect and prevent network abuse.
3. Development of tools for the detection and neutralization of “bonnets” of subverted PCs used by cyber-criminals.
4. Analysis of attacks and development of tools for the security of Voice over IP (VoIP).
5. Development of high-speed defense against denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.
