Prairie View A&M University Taps Spirent to Expand Cybersecurity Research

Spirent Communications plc, the trusted provider of test, measurement, assurance and analytics solutions for next-generation devices and networks, has announced that the Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU), a member of the prestigious Texas A&M University System, has procured the Spirent CyberFlood solution for research and teaching of cybersecurity network testing.

A grant from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) enabled the university to purchase the solution for its SECURE Cybersecurity Center of Excellence and Center of Excellence for Communication Systems Technology Research (CECSTR). CyberFlood will be utilized by students and faculty researching cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and computer forensics.

“With the complexities and constant changes in both networks and security threats, it is now critical and an industry best practice to perform ongoing testing,” said Shumon Alam, Ph.D., research scientist and principal investigator (PI) of the PVAMU project. “We will incorporate the Spirent CyberFlood solution into our curriculum and research programs as we continue to develop and deliver some of the best cybersecurity education in the country.”

CyberFlood is a powerful, automated solution that generates realistic application traffic and security threats within live or production networks, providing organizations with a continual security and performance assessment of their enterprise network infrastructures.

Unlike assessment solutions that simulate attacks, CyberFlood uses actual attack components, true hacker activity, and malware executables accessed through continually updated threat intelligence services to validate an organization’s vulnerability to cybercrime.

“We are pleased to see PVAMU make CyberFlood a prominent element in the instruction and research carried out at its cybersecurity center,” said Daryl Adams, Senior Security Product Engineer at Spirent. “The university is providing students with hands-on state-of-the-art testing experience to prepare for the realities they face in their future vocations and give them a substantial advantage with such working knowledge.”

The DoD award provided to PVAMU is the result of a merit competition administered by the Army Research Office under the policy and guidance of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)). The Army Research Office is an element of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Army Research Laboratory.