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The Cybersecurity and Data Analytics Center (CDAC) conducts high-impact applied research, solving real-world problems for industry and government partners through a decidedly multi-disciplinary approach. At its core, CDAC is all about data – its collection, transmission, security, privacy, and analytics. CDAC’s goal is to transform data into information and knowledge that enhances decision making – automated decision making by devices “at the edge,” semi-autonomous decision making deep within complex networks, and enabling and facilitating efficient and effective data-driven decision making by humans anywhere in the process.

CDAC also plays an important role pioneering innovative, world-class educational programs. Examples of educational initiatives CDAC engages with include The University of Texas at San Antonio's (UTSA's) #1 ranked cybersecurity program, UTSA’s cross-disciplinary data analytics degree, and UTSA’s innovative bio/cyber inspired program to combat digital and biological pathogenic outbreaks. CDAC directly supports the U.S. CyberCorps program, the U.S. Army Reserve’s Public Private Partnership for cybersecurity education, and several other key programs of national scope and importance.

Research Focus Areas:

Data Analytics

CDAC’s analytics research focuses on enhancing government and industry’s capacity to leverage big data, not only in cyber, but also in other domains such as health and biomedical, national security, engineering, manufacturing, business intelligence, and many others. Past successes include, but are not limited to:
• “Smart” cyber forensics tools enabled through advanced analytics algorithms
• Novel anomaly detection algorithms for use in multiple domains
• Video analytics for intelligent object recognition, deception detection, etc.
• Analytics based approaches to insider threat detection
• Data recognition and classification when traditional markers are gone

Center research in this area aims to transform big data into knowledge and real-time situational awareness, allowing our partners to make improved data-driven decisions across a wide variety of fields.

Cybersecurity

CDAC’s cybersecurity research focuses on enhancing government and industry’s ability to protect, defend, respond, and investigate in the face of an ever-changing and increasingly complex threat landscape. Center researchers tackle real-world challenges and provide timely solutions in the following research areas, among others:
• Insider threat detection
• Digital forensics
• Cyber physical system security
• Cyber threat hunting and risk assessment
• Cloud, mobile, and IoT cybersecurity and forensics
• Social, organizational, psychological, and economic aspects of cybersecurity

Education