Facebook and Twitter accounts have been created to celebrate the 2012 IIT graduates. If you would like to post pictures or video, send a message, share stories, or celebrate the graduating class, please visit:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/IITGrads2012
Twitter: use the hashtag #IITGrads2012

Illinois Institute of Technology Announces Master’s Degree in Cyber Forensics and Security
New Program Combines Technical, Legal, Policy and Compliance
In 2011, the average organizational cost of a data security breach in the U.S. was $5.5 million according to a report from Symantec and the Ponemon Institute. Cyber forensics continues to be used to recover evidence from security breaches. Cyber security and forensics issues have become increasingly complicated with technical, legal, policy, and compliance issues, and with such astronomical costs, there is a critical need in both the government and private sectors for professionals equipped to prevent, counteract and investigate cyber terrorism, cybercrimes and information security breaches.

To address these issues, Illinois Institute of Technology’s School of Applied Technology is offering a Master of Cyber Forensics and Security degree and graduate certificate programs in cyber security management and cyber security technologies, starting in fall of 2012. The program integrates legal courses from IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law curriculum and technical and managerial courses from IIT School of Applied Technology’s information technology and management curriculum. The program provides cyber security and forensics practitioners a thorough grounding in technology, legal issues, policy and compliance, providing an outstanding curriculum for those interested in cyber forensics and security and is a substantive follow-up degree for undergraduates majoring in information technology and management, computer science, computer information systems, or computer engineering.

The mission of the cyber forensics and security programs is to prepare students to assume technical and managerial leadership in information technology and cyber security. With a hands-on, reality-based approach to education, the cyber forensics and security program allows students to apply what they learn in class to solve real-life problems. Additional courses may be taken from the IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law curriculum to give cyber security and forensics practitioners a thorough grounding in legal issues and compliance.

“The program provides an innovative experience where cyber forensics and security students work on cutting-edge, industry-sponsored projects that deal with technical, legal, policy and compliance,” said IIT School of Applied Technology Dean Robert Carlson. “This teaching philosophy prepares students to become innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders of the future.”

Recognized by industry professionals as a premier curriculum, IIT’s Cyber Forensics and Security (ForSec) programs are project-based and students are immersed in solving real problems, using current technologies and industry practices, while being guided by experienced faculty.

“In the IIT ForSec Lab, students use real computer viruses to learn and experience how they work, and also devise methods for protection of computers and mobile devices,” explains Professor Bill Lidinsky, director of security and forensics. “In cyber forensics, students learn how to accurately and legally access and analyze computers and cell phones, searching for evidence such as hidden and deleted files, email sent and received and web pages visited.” Students also do cutting edge research and present findings to their peers and leading professionals in their fields. This approach provides students with relevant experience — publishing and presenting at conferences, in some cases for government organizations such as the FBI.

For additional information regarding the Cyber Forensics and Security programs please visit www.itm.iit.edu/cybersecurity.

To help launch the program, Illinois Institute of Technology is hosted ForenSecure: the IIT Cyber Forensics and Security Conference on April 19 and 20. The conference had speakers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Chief Cyber Security Advisor from the Illinois Terrorism Task Force. For additional information about the conference please visit www.cpd.iit.edu/forensecure.

About IIT
Founded in 1890, IIT is a Ph.D.-granting university with more than 7,700 students in engineering, sciences, architecture, psychology, design, humanities, business and law. IIT’s interprofessional, technology-focused curriculum is designed to advance knowledge through research and scholarship, to cultivate invention improving the human condition, and to prepare students from throughout the world for a life of professional achievement, service to society, and individual fulfillment. Visit www.iit.edu.

Folks seem to be having trouble getting to the ITM summer course listings through MyIIT. If you go into MyIIT, select Look Up Classes, select Search By Term: Summer 2012, select Information Tech and Mgmt, and click on “Course Search”, it will then show you a list of ALL courses offered by the department, whether they are offered in the current term or not; it is NOT a list of courses offered this summer. If you select “Advanced Search” instead of “Course Search”, than select Information Tech and Mgmt, then click on “Section Search”, then it will show you the full list of courses offered this summer. OR just to make your life easier, just see the following PDF file: Information Technology and Management Summer 20912 Course Offerings

Come learn more about our Honor Society, Gamma Nu Eta, at our Spring Meet and Greet in Man-0n-the-Bench Park from noon to 2pm, Tuesday April 24th. FREE PIZZA!

Fall and Summer 2012 registration opens today for graduate students and fifth-year seniors!

As of Fall, ITM 4XX and 5XX courses now have have four-letter Subject Codes and can be found listed under IT Development (ITMD), IT Management (ITMM), IT Operations (ITMO), IT Security (ITMS) and IT Theory and Technology (ITMT). The ITM subject code has been retained for 100- through 300-level courses. To view ALL ITM courses in MyIIT, hold your control key down and select all ITM courses by clicking on the choices as shown at the right. By the way, all previously existing courses still carry the same number but now have a new subject code. In addition, one other course offered by the School of Applied Technology is listed under our TECH subject code, indicating it is a course available to ALL graduate students in the School of Applied Technology; the course is TECH 581, Consulting for Technical Professionals, taught by Adjunct Professor Bonnie A. Goins who has many very successful years of practical experience in the field.

If you’ve been looking at the course schedule, there were a few last-minute additions: ITMM 482 Business Innovation, ITMO 542 Wireless Technologies and Applications, ITMS 443/543 Vulnerability Analysis (ethical hacking) and ITMO 547 Telecommunications Over Data Networks: Projects and Advanced Methods.

Significant courses for graduate students that are offered this term that are offered on an infrequent basis include ITMD 563 Intermediate Web Application Development (dot Net framework with C#); ITMM 586 Information Technology Auditing (ISACA CISA content); ITMO 551 Distributed Workstation System Administration (MS Windows Sysadmin); ITMO 557 Storage Technologies (new this term: covers RAID, SANs, NAS, cloud storage, and more); ITMS 555 Mobile Device Forensics (also new this term: forensic investigation of smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices); ITMT 535 Data Center Architecture (a key element of our datacenter curriculum); and TECH 581 Consulting for Technical Professionals (if you ever want to be a consultant, you need this course). Undergraduates…should see their adviser’s Advising Notes at http://trygstad.rice.iit.edu/Fall2012ITMUndergraduateAdvisingNotes.pdf

Have you ever thought about what you’d like to change about IIT? About how IIT could be improved?

As part of the new accreditation process of the North Central Association’s Higher Learning Commission (HLC), universities are required to undertake a Quality Improvement Initiative. The Quality Improvement Initiative can be anything intended to significantly improve the quality of the university. The IIT Accreditation Advisory Committee has invited all members of the IIT community–students, faculty and staff–to share your ideas about a quality improvement initiative that IIT might undertake. They’ve set up a website to gather your ideas; you can submit an original idea (in 150 words or less), and/or vote on ideas submitted by others. Don’t be afraid to be bold, but please submit only serious ideas. The idea submission and voting process will be active until April 21, so send your ideas now. Submit your idea and vote on others’ now:

Oh, be real!

ITM course offerings for Fall 2012 can be previewed at http://www.itm.iit.edu/data/ITM_Draft_Course_Matrix_Fall2012.pdf . This is a DRAFT and is not an official university schedule!

Note that all courses 400-level and higher will now have four-character Subject Codes. There is one new course offered for fall, ITMO 557 Storage Technologies: “Modern enterprise data storage technologies and architectures are examined in depth. Topics include storage devices, file systems, storage networks, virtual storage, RAID, NAS, SAN and other current enterprise-level storage models. Storage management, replication, deduplication, storage tiers, backups, as well as fundamentals of business continuity, application workload, system integration, and storage/system administration are addressed. Specific knowledge and skills required to configure networked storage to include archive, backup, and restoration technologies are covered. Prerequisite: ITMO 301 or ITMO 302” This course is pretty much a “must-have” for everyone in the Data Center or System Administration specializations.

Registration for Fall will open on Monday April 9th.

“Billionaire or Bust” is the headline on an article in Chicago’s RedEye featuring two undergrads in Information Technology and Management. Waylon Janowiak ’13 and Joshua Hensley ’14 are partners with graphic designer Jenna Compton on GoSosh, a site that will allow businesses to reward customers through social media. The article chronicles the travails of the three young entrepreneurs as they tweak their product in preparation for an unveiling set to take place later this year. Janowiak and Hensley are both honor students in the ITM program and are members of IIT’s chapter of Gamma Nu Eta, the National Information Technology Honor Society; Janowiak is the Vice President. In the story Hensley comments on their efforts: “Success is not achieved by earning a mountain of cash or securing some great corporate title. Success is finding your passion and using it to effect positive change in the world.”

The Board of Trustees of Illinois Institute of Technology, during their Spring term meeting, approved the School of Applied Technology’s proposal to offer the Master of Cyber Forensics and Security degree. The program includes courses drawn from the ITM program and additional courses from the IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law curriculum to give cyber security and forensics practitioners a thorough grounding in legal issues and compliance. Core courses for this 30-credit-hour degree will include:
ITMS 538 Cyber Forensics
ITMS 543 Vulnerability Analysis and Control
ITMS 548 Cyber Security Technologies
ITMS 578 Cyber Security Management
LAW 273 Evidence

Electives will include twelve hours selected from:
ITMS 518 Coding Security
ITMS 528 Database Security
ITMS 539 Steganography
ITMS 549 Cyber Security Technologies: Projects and Advanced Methods
ITMS 555 Mobile Device Forensics
ITMS 558 Operating System Security
ITMS 579 Topics in Cyber Security (May be taken more than once)
ITMS 588 Incident Response, Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
ITMM 585 Legal and Ethical Issues in Information Technology
ITMM 586 Information Technology Auditing
ITMO 456 Introduction to Open Source Operating Systems
ITMT 594 Special Projects in Information Technology
AND at least three hours chosen from:
LAW 240 National Security Law
LAW 478 Computer and Network Privacy and Security: Ethical, Legal, and Technical Considerations
LAW 495 Electronic Discovery

Prerequisites for this degree include ITM 301 or ITM 302, ITMD 411, ITMD 421, and ITMO 440 or ITMO 540. Watch here for more details!