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By Brendan Lynch
Mass Insight Corp. and the Defense Technology Initiative are planning an IT security center in Massachusetts, with an eye toward attracting a cyber-warfare component of a U.S. Air Force command to Hanscom Air Force Base.
A working group convened by Mass Insight, including representatives of Mitre Corp., Raytheon Co. and Microsoft Corp., recommended the creation of the Massachusetts IT Security Research Center. Mass Insight president Bill Guenther said the center could cost as little as $3 million a year if it mainly helps remote researchers network, or up to $50 million a year if it conducts its own R&D. Mass Insight is raising $250,000 to $400,000 for a planning study, which Guenther hopes to start in January 2009.
That may sound steep in a recession, but Guenther said high-profile IT breaches are so dangerous to government and industry that he is confident about securing funding from them.
“Take a look at the headlines,” he said, referring to such high-profile breaches as those at the TJX Cos. Inc. or The Boston Globe.
The center would link researchers at schools like MIT and the University of Massachusetts Amherst with each other, and with the security needs of local financial and defense industry companies. It could also make Massachusetts a more attractive home for its new cyber-warfare unit.
For more than a year, DTI has been trying to attract a planned Air Force Cyber Command — and the jobs and contracts it would create — to Hanscom. Last month, the Air Force decided to create a 400-person, “numbered Air Force” under Air Force Space Command for cyberspace operations, rather than create a new command. The new force would be labeled the 24th Air Force.
For the state, the functional difference between the two Air Force approaches is negligible, DTI director Don Quenneville said. DTI is still lobbying for the 24th Air Force to be based at Hanscom. But even if Hanscom doesn’t get the 24th Air Force, Quenneville said local colleges and companies are still likely to benefit from its operations.
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