Cyber Applied Research
Abstract
This program was initiated in FY 2011 to address specific technical problems that were not being fully addressed by the Services’ and NSA’s existing Cyber S&T investments. Recently, S&T gaps were enumerated and described in several studies, including the 2015 DoD Cyber Strategy, the 2016 Commission Enhancing National Cybersecurity and the 2017 Defense Science Board Research Enterprise Assessment. The Cyber Applied Research program builds upon existing basic and applied research results. The program expands research in cyber command-and-control to provide Warfighters and commanders with tools and technologies to enable cyber situational awareness and protection of tactical networks, weapons systems and platforms. Current technical thrusts include: Foundations of Trust, Resilient Infrastructure, Assuring Effective Missions, Cyber Modeling, Simulation & Experimentation, and Embedded, Mobile & Tactical Environments. As adversaries develop more sophisticated technology, tactics, and become more skilled and better funded, the Cyber S&T Community must remain agile, vigilant, and evermore creative in response. To bolster this program and address future threats, starting in FY 2017 a new strategic vision was directed at enhancing the DoD’s tactical edge in the rapidly evolving cyber domain where many aspects still remain unexplored. Judiciously investigating these aspects by investing in the research thrust areas identified below can provide a distinct advantage in future cyber conflicts: • Behavioral Cyber Sciences: The interaction between computers and human behavior. Moving beyond signals (ones and zeroes) towards understanding human behavior. New insights from behavioral sciences will increase the effectiveness of tools, the cyber workforce, and cyber solutions at DoD scale. Behavioral cyber sciences seeks to uncover details about how humans (to include operators, users, adversaries, and/or defenders) react to cyber actions and how those reactions can be understood from a behavioral science standpoint and leveraged to create more effective actions and outcome. • Self-securing weapons, systems, and networks: Thriving in a contested cyber environment. New sciences and mechanisms for autonomous cybersecurity will help keep pace with the growing complexity of weapon systems and help the DoD operators react more quickly to cyber-attacks. • Foundations of precision cyber operations: Precision bombing campaigns for the cyber domain. Accurate and timely predictions of cyber effects will help the DoD leadership achieve the desired effects of cyber operations and help manage risks associated with collateral damage. • Mathematical Foundations of Cyber Security: New tools to address new problems. Advances in mathematical foundations of cyber S&T will cut across focus areas and produce new methods to design, secure, and reason about complex cyber systems. Advances in these new cyber S&T focus thrust areas will help to promote strong foundations and disruptive innovations that will create surprises, shape the fight, and ensure a decisive advantage. The research areas will be critical to the development of innovative and sustainable research that takes cyber security beyond the incremental escalation of attack and defense.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Project
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2018
- Source ID
- P003_0602668D8Z_2_0400_PB_2018
Related Documents
- Root: Cyber Security Research
- Child Accomplishment: Foundations of Trust
- Child Accomplishment: Resilient Infrastructure
- Child Accomplishment: Assuring Effective Missions
- Child Accomplishment: Cyber Modeling, Simulation & Experimentation (MSE)
- Child Accomplishment: Embedded, Mobile & Tactical Environments (EMT)
- Child Accomplishment: Behavioral Cyber Sciences
- Child Accomplishment: Self-securing Weapons, Systems, and Networks
- Child Accomplishment: Foundations of Precision Cyber Operations
- Child Accomplishment: Mathematical Foundations of Cyber Security