Johns Hopkins to launch degree program in cybersecurity and policy

The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies on Wednesday announced plans to launch an advanced academic program focused on the intersection of cybersecurity, technology, intelligence and international affairs.

The program, called the Alperovitch Institute for Cybersecurity Studies, is named after the former Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of the cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike, Dmitri Alperovitch.

Alperovitch left CrowdStrike in February 2020. 

In 2016, Crowdstrike was the first company to say the Russian government was behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee ahead of that year’s presidential election. 

“Our nation’s cyber problems at their core are geopolitical ones,” Alperovitch said in a statement.  

“The major adversaries we face — Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea — present global challenges across the entire spectrum of threats: diplomatic, economic, kinetic, and cyber… The creation of this Institute is an acknowledgement that we can’t address any of these challenges in isolation.”

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas is expected to speak at a launch event for the institute on Wednesday, to be held at Washington’s International Spy Museum, as well as remarks by Mara Karlin, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.  

The institute, which will formally launch in September 2022 and is expected in 2023 to be housed in the building that formerly was the Newseum in Washington D.C., will provide Master’s, PhD and an Executive Leadership program to look at issues of cybersecurity policy.  

“Cyber attacks are not just becoming more common – they are also becoming more sophisticated and dangerous with the potential to cause irreparable damage to our societies,” Johns Hopkins president Ron Daniels said in a statement. 

“This new interdisciplinary institute will be dedicated from the start to generating new research on cybersecurity, statecraft, and public policy, as well as to training the next generation of cybersecurity scholars and experts to meet the threats of the future.”

President Biden identified cybersecurity as a top priority in his administration’s interim national security strategy in March, elevating it to an “imperative across the government,” crossing different sectors including the public, private, industry, infrastructure and global relations. 

The hack of the Democratic National Committee in 2016 is viewed as a watershed moment in cybersecurity and international relations, bringing to the forefront Russia’s attempts to interfere and undermine the U.S. elections and American democracy. 

The Russian government and Russia-based cyber-criminals have garnered attention for a number of high profile attacks. This includes in late 2020 the Russian government’s massive hack of U.S. government agencies and private companies by infiltrating the third-party software Solar Winds, which triggered Biden to impose sanctions. 

In May, a cyber-ransomware hack of the Colonial Pipeline oil pipeline system upended energy delivery on the east coast of the U.S. The perpetrators were described as criminal Russian actors. 

Updated 6:44 p.m.