VCU Partners with United Arab Emirates Institution to Explore Information Security Programs

By Mike Porter and Tom Gresham

A new partnership between Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Business and the Higher Colleges of Technology, a countrywide network of colleges in the United Arab Emirates, is exploring the possibility of creating the Middle East’s first information security academic program.

Under a Memorandum of Understanding signed in November, both institutions will work together to examine the potential of an online/distance instructional collaboration for graduate business students. The agreement also allows both parties to consider establishing a joint center of excellence in information security to help train employees in local institutions and additional future exchanges of faculty and graduate students to collaborate on research and teaching.

“The VCU School of Business is proud to contribute to the knowledge base of the United Arab Emirates through our program in cyber-security,” Ed Grier, Dean of the VCU School of Business said.

“Our evolving partnership represents the growing international collaborative efforts focused on strengthening information security against cyber threats,” Grier said.

Tayeb Kamali, Ph.D., vice chancellor of the Higher Colleges of Technology, said it was pleasing to be working closely with VCU to produce the next generation of information security experts.

“This agreement is another component of HCT’s mandate of offering career-oriented academic programs to meet the specific needs of the local industry and the community. It is vital that our nation produce highly skilled and qualified people to operate in the growing field of information security,” Kamali said. “It will allow our students to gain the knowledge, skills and confidence to ensure they are active contributors to our nation, and also bring greater awareness of information security principles to the region.”

R. McKenna Brown, Ph.D., executive director of VCU’s Global Education Office, said new academic level international agreements build on VCU’s existing commitment to international collaborations as demonstrated by the university’s international partnerships. 

"While the 15 international university partnerships have long been the centerpiece of VCU's international activities, under the guidance of the provost, the Global Education Office promoted the development of academic unit partnerships to provide deans the flexibility to pursue and develop international initiatives of special value to their programs," Brown said.

A global survey of executives on information security this year by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that just 20 percent of Middle East companies have an information security strategy for either cloud computing, mobile devices or social media. Additionally, over a quarter of survey respondents did not know what data privacy safeguards their organization had in place.

“Modern-day criminals are ‘info criminals’ - they are more interested in the data residing in computer systems than the physical assets,” said VCU professor of information security Gurpreet Dhillon, Ph.D. “Companies and governments must have the necessary people and knowledge to protect their information, which is an incredibly valuable commodity in our digitally-connected society.”

Dhillon is leading VCU’s involvement in this project. A graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science, Dhillon is an internationally renowned information security researcher. He has published scores of research papers and several books on the subject matter, including “Principles of Information Systems Security: Text and Cases” (Wiley, 2007). He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Information System Security.

The agreement to explore a new program with HCT furthers VCU’s educational commitment to the Gulf region. In 1998, the university joined Education City in Qatar, where its School of the Arts offers Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees in fashion, graphic, interior design and painting & printmaking and a Master of Fine Arts degree in design studies.