Great news for Connecticut and New England as The University of Connecticut launches a new Cybersecurity Instructional Lab funded by alumni brothers Samuel ’50 and Stephen Altschuler ’54, who earned bachelor’s degrees in electrical engineering.

The Altschuler brothers with scholarship recipients. 

The $1 million Altschuler Cybersecurity Lab will be located on the first floor of the Information Technology Engineering (ITE) Building, this summer.

“We chose to make this gift because of the support we received from UConn when we were engineering students in the early 1950s,” said the brothers in a joint statement. “Our training enabled us to advance our careers to the point where we are financially able to make a gift of this size. Connecticut has been a major focus for us our entire lives, and we are proud to be able to make a meaningful contribution to its flagship university.

“We believe that cybersecurity is among the most critical issues of this age. In order to assure that society will be able to safely continue to use the ever-accelerating advancements of technology, the study of cybersecurity is crucial to the maintenance of peaceful cultures.”

The Altschuler Cybersecurity Lab will be the cornerstone of UConn’s effort to graduate engineers with expertise in cybersecurity, said School of Engineering Dean Kazem Kazerounian (pictured), who joined Donald Swinton, director of development for the School of Engineering, in pursuing the lab’s establishment.

“We are in an age where the threat of cyberattacks has gotten more pervasive. As an institution, we need to be training the next generation of engineers to combat this threat, which is why this gift from the Altschuler brothers is so important for the School of Engineering and the University,” said Kazerounian.

When launched, the lab will teach hands-on cybersecurity to all Computer Science and Engineering Department freshmen, as well as additional members of the department’s 800 undergraduate and 150 graduate student population.

The Engineering School at the University of Connecticut is very well-regarded throughout the country and the school is constantly looking to improve.

This great news and a credit to Dean Kazem Kazerounian and Donald Swinton and all students should benefit.

In related news, last week we learned UCONN Health was hacked – leaking hundreds of thousands of health records in a cybersecurity breach related toa phishing attack.

Finally, last year, Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy put a new Cybersecurity Action Plan in place to better protect state government, education and private companies.