Research and development game-changers for cybersecurity

The administration is trying to take cybersecurity to the next level with an R&D program aimed at producing what it sees as game-changing technologies that will “significantly enhance the trustworthiness of cyberspace.”

It will kick off the new program at an event May 19 in Berkeley, Calif., where people from agencies that make up the Federal Networking and Information technology Research and Development (NITRD) program will explain the program’s goals. It will include a webcast.

Basically, it will split the research into three areas: tailored trustworthy spaces, which are “sub-spaces” in cyberspace that support different security policies and services for specific kinds of interactions; something called moving target, which will increase the cost of any asymmetric attack, presumably to make attackers think twice before they act; and cyber economic incentives, which will look at the economic principles needed to encourage good practices.

The NITRD is one of the older continuing R&D efforts in government, going all the way back to the 1991 High Performance Computing Act, and it’s had a good success rate. Cybersecurity was a focus for it well before it became the hot issue it now is.

The NITRD isn’t proposing this three-step program as a be-all for cybersecurity, but it does expect it to be a precursor for different ways of thinking about the problems of cybersecurity, and a way of “provoking” novel solutions.