ALTOONA, Pa. — Penn State faculty Jungwoo Ryoo, Syed Rizvi and Brooke Long-Yarrison have received a $50,000 grant from the Center for Rural Pennsylvania to research cyber security preparations for municipalities in the Commonwealth.
Ryoo, professor of information sciences and technology and head of the Division of Business, Engineering, and Information Sciences and Technology; Rizvi, associate professor of information sciences and technology; and Long-Yarrison, assistant teaching professor of sociology, are all faculty at Penn State Altoona.
The team will take a look at infrastructure, literacy and daily practices in those municipalities, as well as their maturity in cybersecurity readiness. They will provide an inventory of the types of security technologies, programs and platforms used in local governments.
This research builds upon a 2009 study, also conducted by Ryoo, that helped raise awareness about security issues in the state. This new study will further heighten security awareness, as well as produce information to guide future policies and legislative efforts to minimize computer security breaches in both rural and urban municipalities.