Cyberspace has transformed the daily lives of people for the better. However, our increasing dependence upon cyberspace has exposed its fragility and vulnerabilities: corporations, agencies, national infrastructure and individuals have been victims of cyber-attacks. In December 2011, the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) with the cooperation of the National Science Foundation (NSF) issued a broad, coordinated federal strategic plan for cybersecurity research and development (Trustworthy Cyberspace: Strategic Plan for the Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Program) to “change the game,” by calling for establishing a science of cybersecurity, transitioning promising cybersecurity research into practice, and bolstering education and training in cybersecurity.
The NSF's Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program is supportive of this strategic plan. SaTC recognizes that cyberspace will continue to grow and evolve, and that advances in science and engineering will create new “leap-ahead” opportunities expanding cyberspace. It further recognizes that cybersecurity must also grow and co-evolve, and that a secure and trustworthy cyberspace will ensure continued economic growth and future technological innovation.
Through this program -- a track within the NSF SaTC program -- NSF and the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) are announcing a joint partnership in the area of Secure, Trustworthy, Assured and Resilient Semiconductors and Systems (SaTC: STARSS) focused on research on Design for Assurance. Specifically, NSF and SRC will support research on new strategies for architecture, specification and verification, especially at the stages of design in which formal methods are currently weak or absent, with the aim of decreasing the likelihood of unintended behavior or access, increasing resistance and resilience to tampering, and improving the ability to provide authentication throughout the supply chain and in the field.
NSF and SRC seek to support research on Secured, Assured and Resilient Semiconductors and Systems (STARSS), with a focus on Design for Assurance. The following topics are representative of relevant research areas:
- Architecture & Design;
- Properties, Principles & Metrics;
- Current and Future Threat Assessment;
- Security Verification & Analysis;
- Tools & Frameworks; and
- Authentication & Attestation
Ultimately, concepts addressing the research areas described above must be capable of being implemented in a cost-effective manner.
The SaTC program aims to advance the knowledge base as well as expand the research community. In this spirit, the program plans to host PI meetings every other year with participation from all funded projects and other representatives from the research community, government and industry. Principal investigators from all perspectives are expected to participate in these meetings.