CS2013-final-report

Information Assurance and Security (IAS)
In CS2013, the Information Assurance and Security KA is added to the Body of Knowledge in
recognition of the world’s reliance on information technology and its critical role in computer
science education. Information assurance and security as a domain is the set of controls and
processes both technical and policy intended to protect and defend information and information
systems by ensuring their confidentiality, integrity, and availability, and by providing for
authentication and non-repudiation. The concept of assurance also carries an attestation that
current and past processes and data are valid. Both assurance and security concepts are needed
to ensure a complete perspective. Information assurance and security education, then, includes
all efforts to prepare a workforce with the needed knowledge, skills, and abilities to protect our
information systems and attest to the assurance of the past and current state of processes and
data. The importance of security concepts and topics has emerged as a core requirement in the
Computer Science discipline, much like the importance of performance concepts has been for
many years.
The Information Assurance and Security KA is unique among the set of KAs presented here
given the manner in which the topics are pervasive throughout other Knowledge Areas. The
topics germane to only IAS are presented in the IAS section; other topics are noted and crossreferenced
in the IAS KA. In the IAS KA the many topics are represented with only 9 hours of
Core-Tier1 and Tier2 coverage. This is balanced with the level of mastery primarily at the
familiarity level and the more indepth coverage distributed in the referenced KAs where they are
applied. The broad application of the IAS KA concepts (63.5 hours) across all other KAs
provides the depth of coverage and mastery for an undergraduate computer science student.
The IAS KA is shown in two groups: (1) concepts where the depth is unique to Information
Assurance and Security and (2) IAS topics that are integrated into other KAs that reflect
naturally implied or specified topics with a strong role in security concepts and topics. For
completeness, the total distribution of hours is summarized in the table below.