Cyber Applied Research
Abstract
The program is developing technology options through the DoD S&T organizations within and across the following technical areas: INFORMATION ASSURANCE AND COMPUTER NETWORK DEFENSE (IA/CND): Develop technologies to harden DoD network components; evolve from network defense to mission assurance; and enable systems to operate through cyber attacks in degraded and contested environments. COMPUTER NETWORK OPERATIONS (CNO): Disrupt adversary attack planning and execution; explore game-changing ideas over the full spectrum of CNO and new concepts in cyber warfare; increase collaboration between disparate research communities within CNO; and address identified gaps in DoD CNO S&T to prepare for cyber conflict against advanced persistent threats. CYBER METRICS AND EXPERIMENTATION: Explore new analytical methodologies, models, and experimental data sets to establish metrics to measure a system’s state of security, apply the scientific method to establish the foundations of a scientific framework in which cyber security research can be conducted to test hypothesis with measurable and repeatable results, and quantitative experimentation and assessment of new cyber technologies. Beginning in FY 2014, the program will expand research in cyber command and control to provide warfighters and commanders new situational awareness, course of action analysis, cyber operational agility and cyber mission control. This research will include protection of tactical networks, weapons systems and platforms. The six new technical thrust areas include: TRUST: Develop approaches and methods to establish known degree of assurance that devices, networks, and cyber-dependent functions perform as expected, despite attack or error. This technical area encompasses all aspects of the assessment, establishment, propagation, maintenance, and composition of trust relationships between devices, networks, and people. RESILIENT INFRASTRUCTURE: Entails the ability to withstand cyber attacks, and sustain or recover critical functions. A resilient infrastructure has the ability to continue to perform its functions and provide its services to required levels during an attack. The objective in this area is to develop integrated architectures that are optimized for their ability to absorb (cyber) shock, and recover in a timely fashion to a known secure state, even if this is at the expense of degraded performance. Resilient Algorithms and Protocols covers ways to develop novel protocols and algorithms to increase the repertoire of resiliency mechanisms available to the infrastructure and architecture. Research is needed to develop resiliency at lower levels with specific algorithms and protocols to support higher-level resiliency architectures. AGILE OPERATIONS: Explore new methods and technologies to dynamically reshape cyber systems as conditions/goals change, to escape harm, or to manipulate the adversary. These capabilities present technology challenges in the areas of Autonomic Cyber Agility and Cyber Maneuver. Cyber Maneuver is a new way to manage systems dynamically in a cyber situation. It is a set of emerging methods for maintaining defensive or offensive advantage in cyber operations. It entails developing mechanisms that enable goal-directed reshaping of cyber systems. Cyber maneuver encompasses reallocation for repurposing a device or platform, reconfiguration for changing the way a system performs a task, and relocation for altering the operating location in a logical or physical topology. Autonomic Cyber Agility covers several forms of agility. As cyber infrastructures increase in scale and complexity, there is an urgent need for autonomous and agile mechanisms to reconfigure, heal, optimize, and protect defensive and offensive cyber mechanisms. ASSURING EFFECTIVE MISSIONS: Develop the ability to assess and control the cyber situation in the mission context. While the focus in cyber research is often placed on individual technologies, how these technologies work toward an effective mission is critical for the DoD. The objective of Assuring Effective Missions presents technology challenges in the areas of Cyber Mission Control and Effects at Scale. Cyber Mission Control covers the ability to orchestrate cyber systems to achieve an overarching mission goal. There is a critical need for tools that can map information technology assets to missions and use modeling and simulation, or other techniques, to perform dynamic analysis of asset criticality and course-of-action alternatives. Inherent in Cyber Mission Control is the ability to automatically derive and fuse information about the characteristics of information technology systems in a manner that allows us to describe, analyze, observe, and control the operation of information technology components. A key goal of this research area is to have tools that enable commanders to assess and direct different information technology maneuvers in conjunction with mission actions. Effects at Scale encompass full spectrum challenges that intersect with cyber becoming a new full-fledged domain of warfare. CYBER MODELING, SIMULATION, AND EXPERIMENTATION (MSE): Develop modeling and simulation capabilities that are able to sufficiently simulate the cyber environment in which the DoD operates and enable a more robust assessment and validation of cyber technology development. There are two technical challenges associated with cyber modeling, simulation, and experimentation: Cyber Modeling and Simulation and Cyber Measurement. Cyber Modeling and Simulation seeks to develop tools and techniques that enable analytical modeling and multi-scale simulation of complex cyber systems. Cyber Measurement develops cyber experimentation and test range technology to conduct controlled, repeatable experiments, providing the ability to track the progress of cyber research investments in a quantitative fashion. This area will explore new analytical methodologies, models, and experimental data sets to establish metrics to measure a system’s state of security, apply the scientific method to establish the foundations of a framework in which cyber security research can be conducted, to test hypothesis with measurable and repeatable results, and the quantitative experimentation and assessment for new cyber technologies. These new methodologies will enable the exploration modeling and simulation tools and techniques that can drive innovation in research and aid in integrated experimentation and transition to operations to simulate the cyber environment with sufficient fidelity, and to integrate cyber modeling and simulation with the traditional modeling and simulation related to the kinetic domain. EMBEDDED, MOBILE, AND TACTICAL ENVIRONMENTS (EMT): Increase the overall emphasis on the Department’s cyber systems that rely on technology beyond wired networking and standard computing platforms. The objective in the area of embedded and tactical systems is to develop tools and techniques that assure the secure operation of microprocessors within our weapons platforms and systems; enable security in real-time systems; and establish security in disadvantaged, intermittent, and low-bandwidth environments. This research also seeks to expand and cultivate military-grade techniques for securing and operating with enterprise-style commodity mobile devices, such as smart phones, tablets, and their associated infrastructures. With the constant evolution of these devices and their respective infrastructures it is of the utmost importance to provide a secure environment where these devices can be effectively utilized, monitored and tracked.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Project
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2014
- Source ID
- P003_0602668D8Z_2_0400_PB_2014
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