Cybersecurity Education Center

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  4. Cybersecurity Education Center

Cybersecurity Education Center

The Mercy Cybersecurity Education Center (MCEC) seeks to facilitate research, invention, innovation, education, public awareness, entrepreneurship and economic growth in New York State.

We offer undergraduate and graduate courses that cover the NSA/DHS Knowledge Units and Focus Areas. The MCEC also partners with the DHS Stop.Think.Connect campaign aimed at increasing the understanding of cyber threats and empowering the public to be safer while online.

The Center offers a combined Cybersecurity B.S. and M.S. degree rooted in collaboration with professors, professionals and leaders in the industry.

The Center identifies, addresses and promotes thought and solutions relating to information assurance and cyber defense.

NHS DHS Seals

National Designation

Mercy Cyber Education Center was designated by the NSA as Academic Excellence Center for Information Assurance Education Center in 2011. It was re-designated as Academic Excellence Center on Cybersecurity Defense Education in 2016.

Resources

The Mercy Cybersecurity Education Center has a dedicated lab located in Maher Hall 112 at the Dobbs Ferry campus. The MCEC Lab is designed for research activities and educational services.

  • Cybersecurity web server that is a complement to the Mercy University website hosts course work, internship opportunities, job announcements, conference information and other student activities
  • Self-configures network infrastructure
  • Research Activities

Explore our Information Security page for additional information.

  • Static IP addresses (separated from the Mercy University network infrastructure)
  • Two categories of infrastructure are available
    • Production System: 2 Dell servers are installed and up running
    • Development System: 4 Servers and 4 sets of network equipment are ready for groups of students to
      do practice on building, hardening, attacking, defending, and testing for the system stress and vulnerabilities.
  • A server installed with VM EST supervisor
  • Windows 2007 and Linux Platforms
  • Much of the equipment was donated by CISCO in 2007 specifically to Information Assurance programs designated by the NSA.  Equipment includes: Firewall Router Products (CISCO2611XM-ADSL; C2611XM-2FE/VPN/K9; PIX-515E-R-DMZ-BUN); Switching Products (WS-C2950T-24); Support Products (CON-SNT-26XX; CON-SNT-C2611XVPN; CON-SNT-C2950T24; CON-SNT-PIX515ER)
  • External web access interface
  • Commercial EnCase license
  • Numerous open source software

Learn more about our STEM Advisory Board

Cybersecurity

Events

Learning happens by doing, by trying techniques out and seeing what works. Our events give students that space to try out new ideas, test their skills and present their research. 

Past events: 

  • Cyber Skills Competitions
  • Hackathons
  • Student Project Presentations
  • Cybersecurity Awareness Month
Campus Calendar

Student Work

Robots

Secure Sensor Network: Finding Objects for Layout Generation

Location sensing robots

This project aims at identifying an object while a robot is moving in
the previous unknown/never-recognized zone where there is no GPS information available.

The robots, e.g., RC vehicles equipped with proximity sensors, XBee transceivers, distance sensors, etc, are moving in such an area to figure out
the layout of the zone.

For example, in a closed area, inlets and outlets are finally recognized along
with the walls surrounding.

Students: Juan Ortiz and James Markward

Student Cybersecurity Work

Forensic Investigation: File Recovery

Capturing the Disk Image in Hex

Computer Forensics has emerged as a critical component of the Law Enforcement and Federal Government investigatory process. Although Computer Forensics is seen as the "CSI" of the Computer science field, it is much more complex.

One of the major investigation steps of computer forensics is to recover
and restore deleted files.This project uses Python scripting language to recover deleted files in the following steps:

  1. Obtain the image of a target disk storage
  2. Read the image in hex
  3. Scan the hex code of the header
  4. Save the range of hex code, assuming that the hex code of the header and footer of a deleted file.

Student: Rebecca Bullard

Students in Cybersecurity

Secure Sensor Network: Collaboration Sensing of Acoustic and Time

Configuring Sensors with Arduinos on Moving Objects

This project aims at identifying the origin source of an incident which generates a noise and which will be reported by surveillance cameras. In typical situations, surveillance cameras continue to take video scenes and transmit to a back-end server. Since an event or an accident occurs in-frequently, unnecessarily overwhelmingly many video scenes are transmitted.

We want to let our sensors identify the noises that come from the incident location.Then, the sensors trigger the surveillance cameras to pan and tilt to locate
the incident and start sending video images.

Students: Juan Ortiz and James Markward

Education in MCEC

The Mercy University Cybersecurity course curricula is certified by the Committee on National Security Systems (CNSS).

  • CISC335 Computer Networks II
  • CISC359 Web Site Administration and Security
  • CISC359 Web Site Administration and Security (2010)
  • IASP500 Topics on Information Security
  • IASP500 Topics on Information Security (2010)
  • IASP525 Distributed Database Security (2010)
  • IASP530 Computer Forensics
  • IASP530 Computer Forensics (2010)
  • IASP540 Information Assurance and Management
  • IASP540 Information Assurance and Management (2010) plus the term project assignment
  • IASP545 E-commerce Security
  • IASP550 Firewall and Intrusion Detection
  • IASP580 IT Audit and Compliance

Other Courses with IA Components

  • CHSC 330 Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
  • CHSC 440 Audit and Compliance

Academic Research and Teaching with OPNET Software

As IT evolves rapidly, so are cybersecurity threats and defense technologies. The CMEC Cybersecurity program has undergone a significant revamp with the enhancement of knowledge skill ability.

About the MCEC

Contact Us

For an questions about MCEC, please reach out to:

Zhixiong Chen, Center Director
zchen@mercy.edu

John Yoon, Program Director 
jyoon@mercy.edu

David Wang, Dept. Chair, Math &CSs
dwang@mercy.edu

Peter West, Dean, School of Liberal Arts
pwest@mercy.edu

Update Us

Any news or updates from Alumni would be appreciated. To send an update please email jyoon@mercy.edu.

Additional Information

Download a copy of the Dual Degree Application Form

Redesignation Information

Mercy University  is one of the centers that was assigned to the first cycle of re-designation. It has submitted the first POS on BS in Cybersecurity in the early January 2021.