News Archive

USF Hosts Cybersecurity Summit

The new Florida Cybersecurity Center at USF recently hosted a cybersecurity summit to discuss issues in the field.

The event, hosted on Aug. 20 in the Marshall Student Center, showcased USF leadership and other dignitaries who came together to examine and discuss the center's mission. Center Director Sri Sridharan and other experts in the field informed the campus community about efforts to make the university the state's institution of choice and center of excellence for education, research, and outreach in the area of cybersecurity.

Recent well-publicized computer system security breaches experienced by institutions from Facebook to the Federal Reserve are prompting increased interest in and spending on cybersecurity. According to Bloomberg News, U.S. companies and public sector organizations will raise outlays on computer security to almost $90 billion in 2013, more than double expenditures in 2006.

With few specialists as yet trained to respond to evolving attacks, demand currently is overwhelming supply and cybersecurity has emerged as one of the fastest growing job categories nationwide as well as globally. Since 2007, U.S. job listings for cybersecurity positions increased 73 percent or 3.5 times faster than postings for computer jobs as a whole.