Department of Veterans Affairs chooses UNT business college to develop cyber security

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs awarded a two-year contract of $978,000 to the UNT College of Business Administration to help establish a cyber security project management office within the VA.

Leon A. Kappelman, professor of business computer information systems and director of the Information Systems Research Center (ISRC), will lead the project.

"Vulnerabilities associated with Internet and other cyber security risks put government, businesses and individual users at risk," Kappelman says. "The VA not only protects the personal medical records of millions of veterans, but as the largest health care organization in the United States, it also plays a key role in homeland security."

Kappelman and the ISRC already have assisted the VA in changing the ways it manages and uses technology to serve the nation's 25 million veterans, their widows and orphans. In March 2002, Kappelman testified about the VA's progress on integrated enterprise architecture, cyber security and several other major technology initiatives before a congressional subcommittee.

The VA annual budget — more than $55 billion — is second in amount only to the Department of Defense, making it the largest civilian department in the federal government. It allocates an annual information technology budget of approximately $1.4 billion and maintains more than 4,000 IT professionals among its 230,000 employees.

BY RUFUS COLEMAN rcoleman@unt.edu

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• Interim title holders named to positions permanently
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