Foundational Cybersecurity Research

Attaining meaningful cybersecurity presents a broad societal challenge. Its complexity and the range of systems and sectors in which it is needed mean that successful approaches are necessarily multifaceted. Moreover, cybersecurity is a dynamic process involving human attackers who continue to adapt. Despite considerable investments of resources and intellect, cybersecurity continues to poses serious challenges to national security, business performance, and public well-being. Modern developments in computation, storage and connectivity to the Internet have brought into even sharper focus the need for a better understanding of the overall security of the systems we depend on. Foundational Cybersecurity Research focuses on foundational research strategies for organizing people, technologies, and governance. These strategies seek to ensure the sustained support needed to create an agile, effective research community, with collaborative links across disciplines and between research and practice. This report is aimed primarily at the cybersecurity research community, but takes a broad view that efforts to improve foundational cybersecurity research will need to include many disciplines working together to achieve common goals.

Attaining meaningful cybersecurity presents a broad societal challenge. Its complexity and the range of systems and sectors in which it is needed mean that successful approaches are necessarily multifaceted. Moreover, cybersecurity is a dynamic process involving human attackers who continue to adapt. Despite considerable investments of resources and intellect, cybersecurity continues to poses serious challenges to national security, business performance, and public well-being. Modern developments in computation, storage and connectivity to the Internet have brought into even sharper focus the need for a better understanding of the overall security of the systems we depend on. Foundational Cybersecurity Research focuses on foundational research strategies for organizing people, technologies, and governance. These strategies seek to ensure the sustained support needed to create an agile, effective research community, with collaborative links across disciplines and between research and practice. This report is aimed primarily at the cybersecurity research community, but takes a broad view that efforts to improve foundational cybersecurity research will need to include many disciplines working together to achieve common goals.

There is extensive government research on cyber security science, technology, and applications. Much of this research will be transferred to the private sector to aid in product development and the improvement of protective measures against cyber warfare attacks. This research is not widely publicized. There are initiatives to coordinate these research efforts but there has never been a published comprehensive analysis of the content and direction of the numerous research programs. This book provides private sector developers, investors, and security planners with insight into the direction of the U.S. Government research efforts on cybersecurity.

The prevalence of cyber-dependent crimes and illegal activities that can only be performed using a computer, computer networks, or other forms of information communication technology has significantly increased during the last two decades in the USA and worldwide. As a result, cybersecurity scholars and practitioners have developed various tools and policies to reduce individuals' and organizations' risk of experiencing cyber-dependent crimes. However, although cybersecurity research and tools production efforts have increased substantially, very little attention has been devoted to identifying potential comprehensive interventions that consider both human and technical aspects of the local ecology within which these crimes emerge and persist. Moreover, it appears that rigorous scientific assessments of these technologies and policies "in the wild" have been dismissed in the process of encouraging innovation and marketing. Consequently, governmental organizations, public, and private companies allocate a considerable portion of their operations budgets to protecting their computer and internet infrastructures without understanding the effectiveness of various tools and policies in reducing the myriad of risks they face. Unfortunately, this practice may complicate organizational workflows and increase costs for government entities, businesses, and consumers. The success of the evidence-based approach in improving performance in a wide range of professions (for example, medicine, policing, and education) leads us to believe that an evidence-based cybersecurity approach is critical for improving cybersecurity efforts. This book seeks to explain the foundation of the evidence-based cybersecurity approach, review its relevance in the context of existing security tools and policies, and provide concrete examples of how adopting this approach could improve cybersecurity operations and guide policymakers' decision-making process. The evidence-based cybersecurity approach explained aims to support security professionals', policymakers', and individual computer users' decision-making regarding the deployment of security policies and tools by calling for rigorous scientific investigations of the effectiveness of these policies and mechanisms in achieving their goals to protect critical assets. This book illustrates how this approach provides an ideal framework for conceptualizing an interdisciplinary problem like cybersecurity because it stresses moving beyond decision-makers' political, financial, social, and personal experience backgrounds when adopting cybersecurity tools and policies. This approach is also a model in which policy decisions are made based on scientific research findings.

This book introduces impact-driven research paths in computer science, information systems and cybersecurity with practical insights, effective instructions, and examples. The book takes the students through the full cycle of research until the point of submission and evaluation. The book begins by providing postgraduate research students with the foundational concepts and techniques to simplify the complexities associated with choosing topics in the computer science (CS), information systems (IS) and cybersecurity (CY) research domains. The authors furnish readers with fundamentals that facilitate active quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research enquiries. The content offers important perspectives on how to think about deepening research in CS, IS and CY, noting that these subjects can be studied from computational sciences, engineering sciences, health sciences, social sciences, or interdisciplinary perspectives. This unique and contemporary book aims to benefit researchers, graduate students and engineers in the fields of computer science, information systems and cybersecurity in particular, in addition to other engineering and technology disciplines.

Research Methods for Cyber Security teaches scientific methods for generating impactful knowledge, validating theories, and adding critical rigor to the cyber security field. This book shows how to develop a research plan, beginning by starting research with a question, then offers an introduction to the broad range of useful research methods for cyber security research: observational, mathematical, experimental, and applied. Each research method chapter concludes with recommended outlines and suggested templates for submission to peer reviewed venues. This book concludes with information on cross-cutting issues within cyber security research. Cyber security research contends with numerous unique issues, such as an extremely fast environment evolution, adversarial behavior, and the merging of natural and social science phenomena. Research Methods for Cyber Security addresses these concerns and much more by teaching readers not only the process of science in the context of cyber security research, but providing assistance in execution of research as well. Presents research methods from a cyber security science perspective Catalyzes the rigorous research necessary to propel the cyber security field forward Provides a guided method selection for the type of research being conducted, presented in the context of real-world usage

Given the growing importance of cyberspace to nearly all aspects of national life, a secure cyberspace is vitally important to the nation, but cyberspace is far from secure today. The United States faces the real risk that adversaries will exploit vulnerabilities in the nation's critical information systems, thereby causing considerable suffering and damage. Online e-commerce business, government agency files, and identity records are all potential security targets. Toward a Safer and More Secure Cyberspace examines these Internet security vulnerabilities and offers a strategy for future research aimed at countering cyber attacks. It also explores the nature of online threats and some of the reasons why past research for improving cybersecurity has had less impact than anticipated, and considers the human resource base needed to advance the cybersecurity research agenda. This book will be an invaluable resource for Internet security professionals, information technologists, policy makers, data stewards, e-commerce providers, consumer protection advocates, and others interested in digital security and safety.