Utica College cybersecurity programs get NSA approval

UTICA — Utica College announced that the National Security Agency (NSA) has approved its cybersecurity and information-assurance courses.

It’s the first step toward the private college becoming a Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education, the “gold standard in education in the field,” Utica College said in a news release.

The approval means Utica College’s undergraduate and graduate-level courses meet all of the elements of the Committee on National Security Systems’ (CNSS) “rigorous” standards for information-systems security professionals and risk analysts. The college’s programs will be recognized at a CNSS ceremony in June.

“Achieving this approval took an intensive, collaborative effort by the faculty, staff and students,” Joseph Giordano, professor and chair of cybersecurity undergraduate and graduate programs at Utica College, said in the release. “The criteria for approval is a very specific and complicated process. Seven courses from both the undergraduate and graduate programs were sent to the National Security Agency for approval.”

Utica College’s graduate program has one concentration in intelligence and one in computer forensics. The intelligence concentration covers counterintelligence, cyber counterterrorism, cyber countersabotage, while the computer-forensics concentration is more hands-on, focusing on collecting and preparing evidence of computer crimes such as fraud, child pornography, and cyber espionage, according to the college.