Oh my. This just boggles the mind. The University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), which recently exposed thousands of people’s personal information, including mine, has just been named a Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education, “a designation that places it among the top computer security institutions in the country” (quoting from the press release on UAF’s Web site). The designation comes from the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.

This is totally astounding. Keep in mind that UAF’s exposure of my personal information wasn’t just a passive loss where a laptop was stolen from someone’s home, and no one knows if any of it was used. Instead, the information was sitting on a server in Bethel that wasn’t adequately secured, demonstrating that UAF doesn’t know how to secure its own network. The UAF incident was the result of hacks over eleven months before anyone noticed. I still haven’t a clue about why my personal information was on a server in Bethel, since I’ve only attended classes in Fairbanks and Barrow.

Now the university that has exposed me to identity theft through gross negligence has been designated a top security institution in the country, one of only 67 such schools in the country.

To be fair, the designation is based on meeting rigorous standards for training security professionals, not the security or lack thereof of its own computer systems. From the press release: “UAF is being recognized for its cutting-edge efforts to make computers and networks across the world more safe and secure.” Maybe they know how to teach it, but they have proven they don’t know how to do it.

I guess this once again validates the old adage, “those who can’t do, teach.” To grant UAF this designation is an insult to me and my fellow students whose information was exposed. Even worse, it bodes poorly for the future of computer security. To come from the NSA and Homeland Security confirms in my mind that we are not getting the security our massive federal dollars are paying for.

References: National Information Assurance Training and Education Center Web site Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education (CAEIAE) on NSA Web site

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