St. Cloud State develops quantum information systems courses

St. Cloud State University is developing courses and hands-on learning in the critical new area of cybersecurity — quantum encryption. 

The university earned a more than $277,000 grant for the expansion of Center of Academic Excellence-Cybersecurity (CAE-C) Education Programs from the National Security Agency to develop the courses.

Viable quantum encryption systems have the potential to change the way data is protected and transmitted over the Internet, said Mark Schmidt, professor of Information Systems.

The first quantum information systems courses will be offered online at St. Cloud State during Summer Sessions 2018. The courses will be available at both the undergraduate and graduate level and will be open to both St. Cloud State and non-degree seeking students. Students in programs such as information systems, information assurance, cybersecurity, mathematics and applied sciences are encouraged to enroll in the courses to gain experience with quantum encryption.

Additional courses in quantum encryption will be offered during the 2018-19 school year.

This emerging field has potential ramifications for both the industry and government institutions, but it can also impact the public as well because the development of commercially-available quantum computers could lead to attacks on the public-key encryption used throughout the Internet. This has led to a focus on quantum encryption because these systems are less susceptible to attacks by quantum computers, Schmidt said.

Quantum key cryptography is currently being under taught in cybersecurity programs because of a lack of academic expertise and educational materials available in the subject, he said.

That is why Herberger Business School and the Department of Information Systems are using the CAE-C grant to develop curriculum covering the difficult concepts of quantum encryption that could then be used or modeled by other institutions.

The project will be spearheaded by faculty member Renat Sultanov, of the Business Computing Research Center. Sultanov has a doctorate in nuclear physics and has published numerous works related to quantum physics including articles in the journal “Physical Review”. Sultanov will work with faculty members Dennis Guster and Mark Schmidt, who teach undergraduate and graduate courses in cybersecurity, in developing the curriculum.

The Business Computing Research Center provides a ready-made environment for building out and testing equipment to implement quantum encryption systems because it has about 200 computing cores using a virtualized cloud architecture.

This private cloud is completely self-contained and provides its own Domain Name Service, active director and firewalling, which provides an environment for students to gain hands-on experience with quantum cryptography language programming and with devices they will use for quantum cryptography transmissions.