Transform Cybersecurity Research into Immersive, Real-World Solutions
Our mission is to explore cyber-incident response as crisis management while developing next-generation, immersive, technology-enhanced training and exercise designs that empower multi-professional organizational and interorganizational response teams to act decisively and collaboratively in the face of complex cyber crises.
“CREST brings together AI and advanced immersive technologies to assimilate and process the ‘big data’ that needs to be analyzed to understand evolving cybersecurity vulnerabilities and build resilience.”
— Thenkurussi “Kesh” Kesavadas, Vice President for Research & Economic Development
“A cyber-attack on critical infrastructure, like power, water or transportation, creates cascading consequences that are disruptive in the real world. CREST will create new capabilities to both simulate these evolving cyber threats and provide decision-makers with immersive opportunities to practice responding to them.”
— Eric K. Stern, Principal Investigator
Project Goals
- Develop a Cybersecurity Incident Response Studio (CIRS) that integrates research, technology and training to address evolving cyber threats
- Harness artificial intelligence, immersive simulation and high-performance computing to strengthen cybersecurity preparedness and incident response
- Create a scalable, AI-enhanced exercise and simulation environment to model real-world cyberattacks, defenses and cascading impacts across sectors
- Advance multi-disciplinary collaboration among government, industry, academia and community stakeholders to build resilient cyber ecosystems
- Foster an adaptive learning environment to train current and future cybersecurity professionals using data-driven, realistic and repeatable simulations
The objective of CREST is to establish a pioneering, research-informed and practice-driven platform that enhances New York State’s ability to prevent, respond to and recover from cyber incidents while serving as a model for national cybersecurity preparedness and resilience.
Project Impact
- Enhanced readiness and resilience of public and private sectors against cyber threats
- More effective and coordinated decision-making during cybersecurity crises through immersive training and AI-supported exercises
- Strengthened community and organizational capacity to manage and recover from complex, cascading cyber incidents
- Advancement of cybersecurity education through hands-on, experiential learning modules and virtual reality (VR) enabled crisis simulations
- Increased collaboration across technical and non-technical disciplines, bridging gaps between IT, policy and crisis leadership
- Economic and workforce development through innovation, job creation and University-industry partnerships in cybersecurity technology
- Establishment of New York State as a national leader and innovation hub for AI-driven cyber incident preparedness and response
Partners & Members of Stakeholder Groups
UAlbany Partners
College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity (CEHC)
Center for Advanced Red Teaming (CART)
Center for Technology in Government (CTG)
Human-Centered Intelligence XR Lab
Center for Emerging Artificial Intelligence System (CEAIS)
External Partners
1220 Washington Avenue
Albany, NY 12203
United States
