From the Dean’s Desk: Securing Our Digital Future
When one of our computer science students set out to penetrate Apple’s security systems as part of her research, she had every intention of finding a vulnerability. She didn’t succeed—Apple’s defenses held firm. But here’s what makes this story remarkable: Apple was so impressed by her skills, her approach, and her ethical hacking expertise that they hired her anyway. Today, Paulina works in security at one of the world’s most innovative companies, a testament to the caliber of talent we’re developing right here at FIU.
This story captures something essential about our approach to cybersecurity. We’re not just teaching students to follow established protocols. We’re empowering them to challenge systems. It’s this kind of forward-thinking mindset that has helped FIU earn recognition as the No. 16 most innovative public university in the nation and achieve Top 20 status for U.S. Utility Patents Granted among U.S. Public Universities.
Today, I would like to share with you two examples of how we are driving cybersecurity research and education forward.
CIERTA: Center for Integrated SEcurity, PRivacy, and Trustworthy AI.
Under the leadership of Selcuk Uluagac, CIERTA is a recently revitalized center with a new vision for developing cybersecurity, privacy, and trustworthy AI solutions in South Florida and beyond. The vision is ambitious: to become the place where government, industry, and community turn when they need cybersecurity expertise, research or training.
CIERTA is now housed in Innovation 1, our newly opened Innovation Complex building that serves as a hub for solution centers focused on multidisciplinary research and training in AI, cybersecurity, and other cutting-edge areas. This strategic placement reinforces our commitment to collaborative innovation and positions CIERTA at the heart of FIU’s technological transformation.
That approach is evident in groundbreaking research coming out of Uluagac’s Cyber-Physical Systems Security Lab. Today, the total number of active Android devices is in the billions. He and his research team, collaborating with Google researchers, have revealed that scores of Android devices around the world are receiving security updates at late and different rates, putting some phones and tablets in severe danger of cyber attacks. They published their results in the extremely competitive cybersecurity symposium Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS). In another recent work, his research team introduced a novel digital forensic framework for smart environments such as smart homes and offices. By providing a practical and efficient solution, this work also published in NDSS, improved digital forensics, security and accountability in smart environments, addressing a critical need in the rapidly expanding landscape of interconnected devices.
This kind of innovative research extends across our cybersecurity portfolio. Our faculty members are authoring numerous high-impact publications in premier venues such as USENIX Security, NDSS, IEEE DSN, ACSAC and IEEE TIFS, with research that has influenced both industry practice and national policy, reflecting the caliber of the CIERTA faculty.
Mohammad Ashiqur Rahman is the associate director of CIERTA. He focuses on cyber-physical systems, the smart technologies that increasingly control our critical infrastructure.
From drones to medical devices to power grids, Rahman’s research group Analytics for Cyber Defense (ACyD) Lab addresses a sobering reality: attacks can occur at multiple layers, including at the hardware and control level where traditional detection methods often fail.
His NSA-funded research on drone security demonstrates this multilayered approach.
“Our research moves beyond the typical software and data-driven defense,” Rahman explains.
Teaching Teachers
As Miami’s preeminent public university, we know that research excellence means little without educational excellence to match.
That’s why I am excited to highlight something extraordinary that Alexander Perez Pons has been quietly building: a teacher education initiative that’s expanding cybersecurity literacy across South Florida and beyond. This year, FIU led a coalition of institutions, training approximately 80 teachers and 40 students across multiple sites. It’s a significant expansion from our individual campus programs, and it positions FIU in a leadership role overseeing partner institutions throughout the region.
The program’s impact is best measured in stories like that of Jose Rios, a teacher who participated in the first year of Perez Pons’ program, returned to help with the second year, earned his master’s degree in cybersecurity from FIU in just one year, and now leads cybersecurity initiatives at his high school.
This year, the program incorporated artificial intelligence education for the first time. It’s another example of how we’re staying ahead of the curve, preparing the next generation for a rapidly evolving technological landscape.
Perez Pons is also building direct pathways from classroom to career through the MiamiCyber2Work initiative, which prepares students to take on cybersecurity internships in the industry.
What ties all of this together—CIERTA’s vision, our cutting-edge research, our expanding education programs, and students like Paulina breaking into elite careers—is our commitment as a college to meet this moment in cybersecurity. The digital threats we face are sophisticated and constantly evolving. But so are we.
FIU’s programs helped prepare Ryan Cruz – now a senior cyber systems security engineer at Lockheed Martin – for workforce success by combining technical expertise with relationship-building skills.
“CIERTA indeed unites about 30 FIU faculty across engineering, computing, law, business, and social sciences to tackle different cybersecurity and trustworthy AI research problems while providing workforce development opportunities. CIERTA has catalyzed many impactful programs and assets at FIU in cybersecurity, including the CyberCorps Scholarship for Service Program, Cybersecurity Apprenticeship Program, the NSA National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense designation, 30+ patents, and more than $65 million in research funding in the last five years,” Uluagac says.
With world-class researchers pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, educators expanding access to cybersecurity knowledge, and students proving they can compete with anyone, we’re not just responding to challenges. We’re working to define the future of cybersecurity research and education.
This Cybersecurity Awareness Month, I invite you to connect with our world-famous faculty of CIERTA and join us in making a long-lasting impact in the field of cybersecurity.