Abstract
Since the decline of the steel industry, the City of Pittsburgh’s reduced tax revenue has dramatically impacted its ability to provide essential municipal services, including an efficient and secure technology infrastructure. To overcome these budget shortfalls, the City has begun to explore partnerships with local universities. For example, the City’s computer services department, in collaboration with a group of security students of the H. John Heinz III College at Carnegie Mellon University, undertook a comprehensive security evaluation of Pittsburgh’s municipal computer network. The students identified numerous security breaches for the City while obtaining an invaluable real-world learning experience. This innovative collaboration can serve as a model for future government–university partnerships.
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Notes
- 1.
Center for Sensed Critical Infrastructure Research. (2008, December 18). CenSCIR Plays a Role in Community Connections. Retrieved from http://www.ices.cmu.edu/censcir/newsitem.asp?NewsID=585.
Abbreviations
- CCAC:
-
Community College of Allegheny County
- CenSCIR:
-
Center for Sensed Critical Infrastructure Research
- CIO:
-
Chief Information Officer
- CMU:
-
Carnegie Mellon University
- NDA:
-
Non-disclosure agreement
- SOX:
-
Sarbanes-Oxley
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Acknowledgments
I thank Philip Lehman, Timothy Shimeall, and Andy Wasser of Carnegie Mellon University for their invaluable help and support with the planning and execution of this six-month-long study. I also thank Alex Musicante, a systems security architect with the City Information Systems department of the City of Pittsburgh, for his invaluable advice. Finally, I thank Rhonda Wasserman, Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, for her meticulous comments and suggestions, which have improved this book chapter immensely.
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Stern, H.A. (2017). A Security Evaluation of a Municipal Computer Network: The Case of Collaboration Between the City of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. In: Clark, R., Hakim, S. (eds) Cyber-Physical Security. Protecting Critical Infrastructure, vol 3. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32824-9_5
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