Cybersecurity Clinic

For decades, schools of law and medicine have operated “clinics,” where students work with real-world clients with limited resources and gain valuable hands-on experience. As a founding member of the Consortium of Cybersecurity Clinics, RIT provides cybersecurity services to our community while creating more opportunities for our students.

The goal of these projects is to give students from diverse backgrounds and academic expertise a “clinical” experience where they work on real-world problems and systems under the supervision of faculty and help to strengthen the digital defenses of nonprofits, hospitals, municipalities, small businesses, and other under-resourced organizations in our community. The Clinic model also helps students to connect with local community organizations and have a chance of exploring the cybersecurity field.

RIT’s ESL Global Cybersecurity Institute gets requests from community organizations for various kinds of help. Example projects might include running user studies, phishing tests, reviewing cybersecurity policies and configurations, employee training on cyber hygiene, and requirement/compliance analysis.

The project for the semester will be chosen based on students interests/qualifications from the pool of requests we get.

Most projects will include a scoping exercise with the client at the beginning of the semester to agree on the tasks and deliverables. Deliverables are usually in the form of reports and recommendations after conducting appropriate tests, studies and training.

• All computing majors (e.g. computer science, cybersecurity, Ischool, game design and development, software engineering, computer engineering, etc.)
• Business majors (especially those interested in working on projects that include exploring product market ft, competitive analysis, requirements gathering for cybersecurity products and solutions)

Meeting time will be set based on schedules of accepted students.

You can learn more about the clinic model on the Consortium of Cybersecurity Clinics website.