As a result of the growing awareness of computer security, the reported rapidly increasing incidents of security breaches and malicious attacks, and even the threat of cyber terrorism, there is an increasing need for governments, organizations, enterprises, and individuals to employ enhanced security measures and security devices to protect their computer systems and information assets. Thus, information security and the broader area of information assurance have become timely research topics, to which the techniques of intelligent systems are of great interest due to their superior potential for solving many of the problems in information security.

This tutorial covers the basic concepts and issues of information assurance. A general introduction to the common topics will be presented, followed by an in-depth coverage of selected topics on firewalls, intrusion detection, cryptography and steganography, and wireless network security, with emphasis on the application of intelligent systems techniques.