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John Homer and team awarded HP Labs Innovation Research Award

A majority of businesses report incidents of data security attacks, and many others have been attacked but don't yet know it, according to Dr. John Homer, assistant professor of computer science.

Homer's research team, working on new enterprise network protection software, recently garnered recognition as one of the winners of the HP Labs Innovation Research Award. The team was led by Dr. Xinming Ou, assistant professor of computing and information sciences at Kansas State University.

“The hardest aspect of our project was finding a way to correlate the different problems to find an overall level of insecurity,” says Homer. “We try to eliminate the need for users to calculate the level of security risk they face, which allows them to better identify the weak points in their systems."

According to Homer, the project is helping turn the concept of understanding network security from an art to a science.

Dr. Fortune Mhlanga, director and professor of computer science, believes the HP award will help students to better grasp research being performed outside the classroom.

"This award highlights the quality of our department as a whole,” says Mhlanga. “We promise students an education that is exceptional, innovative and real, and this is just one example that shows how we deliver on that promise. Our students have an opportunity to work with exceptional scholars and even participate in their research.”