About

Mission

Safeguarding critical technology is the mission of Northeastern’s Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute. Forging partnerships with experts in industry, government, and academia worldwide, the Institute’s faculty and students develop, protect, and enhance technologies on which the world relies—from mobile devices and “smart” IoT applications to tomorrow’s self-driving cars and delivery drones.

Students work in the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex.

Overview

The institute’s many partners tap the expertise of our faculty to solve challenges in areas from cryptography and cloud security to malware analysis and detection. At our state-of-the-art Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex, visiting researchers work with faculty members and students in collaborative spaces.

Our transformative approach accelerates the development and testing of practical solutions. Applying the latest research results, we generate fresh ideas. Led by a faculty with a rare depth and breadth of expertise, project teams work with data generated by real-world security and privacy breeches. Flexible IP policies ensure that partners share in the fruit of our collaborations.

At Northeastern, a fertile ecosystem for cross-disciplinary collaboration, the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute’s partners benefit from our deep integration with the university, including the Khoury College of Computer Sciences. What’s more, our partners can tap our connections with leading universities, tech companies, and defense contractors globally and here in Boston, a city often called home to the greatest concentration of intellectual capital in the world.

Key participants in project teams are Northeastern’s exceptional students. Our graduates in the bachelor’s, professional master’s, and doctoral programs represent a pipeline of talent for our partners—one that champions women and diversity.

In recognition of Northeastern’s strengths in cyber defense, the National Security Agency has designated the university a National Center of Academic Excellence for the BS degree in Computer Science and in Cyber Security, with a Concentration in Cyber Operations. Northeastern has also been named a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Research and a Center of Excellence in Information Assurance Education by the NSA and the Department of Homeland Security.

Leadership

Executive Director

Engin Kirda holds the post of professor of computer science at Northeastern University in Boston. Before that, he held faculty positions at Institute Eurecom in the French Riviera and the Technical University of Vienna, where he co-founded the Secure Systems Lab that is now distributed over five institutions in Europe and the United States. Professor Kirda’s research has focused on malware analysis (e.g., Anubis, Exposure, and Fire) and detection, web application security, and practical aspects of social networking security. He co-authored more than 100 peer-reviewed scholarly publications and served on the program committees of numerous well-known international conferences and workshops. Read a detailed biography here.