Our School of Business recently announced the creation of The Gary Goldbloom Endowed Chair in Cybersecurity, enabling the University to offer undergraduate and graduate degrees in cybersecurity as early as 2015. The Identity Theft Resource Center reports that there have been almost 82 million data records breached so far in 2014. Almost 80% of the records breached were related to businesses. Notable incidents include the theft of Home Depot files containing approximately 53 million email addresses, and JP Morgan Chase’s data compromise that impacted approximately 76 million households and seven million small businesses. Just last week the United States Postal Service announced that a cyberattack affected 800,000 employees and a still undetermined number of customers that contacted their call center this year.
Recognizing the need for individuals skilled in detecting and preventing data breaches, the University is launching an undergraduate and graduate program focused on Cybersecurity. Unlike programs that focus solely on technical aspects of cybersecurity, this multi-disciplinary degree will be sponsored by the School of Business, and include coursework in criminal justice, as well as information technology. The master’s program will be available by early 2015, followed by the undergraduate degree.
