2: Trust and Confidence

The ability to design and build systems with levels of security, safety, privacy, reliability, predictability, and dependability that “you can bet your life on.”

Other Information:

The ability to design and build systems with levels of security, safety, privacy, reliability, predictability, and dependability that “you can bet your life on,” and an understanding of “the science of security” that will enable us verifiably to create systems we can trust out of fundamentally untrusted (whether by accident or by design) components. Cyber systems that inspire trust and confidence will greatly increase their value to society, and we will be able to ensure that data resources and systems can be reliably used for their intended purposes. A screen freeze may be a trivial inconvenience, but the consequences of more serious IT flaws – such as a digitally controlled diagnostic system whose malfunctioning delivers lethal doses of radiation, trains that have a fatal head-on collision due to a software error, or the theft of sensitive information over the Internet – undermine society’s trust in the efficacy of IT as the basic infrastructure of the digital age. The perspective of the NITRD agencies is that one of the most significant tests of technological leadership in the years ahead will be the ability to engineer and build IT systems that inspire high levels of confidence because they function as intended safely, securely, reliably, and cost-effectively. Fundamental research to ensure that digital networks, systems, devices, applications, and communications processes earn and deserve the trust and confidence of society thus constitutes an essential foundation for the Nation’s future. Since technology is only half of the equation, this work should include a robust interdisciplinary R&D agenda in the behavioral, ethical, legal, and societal aspects of achieving trust and confidence – for example, how to make systems much more user-friendly, so it is easy for users to “do the right thing” in engaging security and privacy-protection features. Following are the key elements of this vision and the major research challenges to be met in each.

Objective(s):

2.1: Trustworthiness

2.1.1: System Hardening and Software Patching

2.1.2: Basic Research

2.1.3: Science of Security

2.1.3.1: Curricula and Training

2.2: Cyber Security

2.2.1: End-to-End Security

2.2.1.1: Myriad Advances

2.2.1.2: Proactive Approaches

2.2.1.2.1: Dynamic Security

2.2.1.2.2: Identity Management

2.2.1.2.3: Situational Awareness

2.2.1.2.4: Attack Attribution and Combat

2.2.1.2.5: Security Metrics

2.2.1.2.6: Education

2.2.1.2.7: Techniques

2.3: Systems

2.3.1: Integrated Design

2.3.2: Models

2.3.3: Fault Tolerance

2.3.3.1: Prediction

2.3.3.2: Recovery

2.3.3.3: Adaptation

2.3.4: Composition and Guarantees

2.3.5: Cyber-Physical Systems

2.3.6: Certification

2.3.7: Tool Chains

2.4: Information Assurance and Sharing

2.4.1: Advanced Architectures

2.4.2: Digital Information

2.4.2.1: Homomorphic Encryption

2.5: Security and Privacy

2.5.1: Design Conflicts

2.5.2: Monitoring and Mitigation Tools

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