Led by Jennifer Bayuk, a team of researchers from Auburn University, Stevens Institute of Technology University of Southern California, and the University of Virginia spent 9 months working on a roadmap to methodically extract the value of current approaches to systems security and integrate them with a systems thinking perspective.

Download roadmap document

Current defensive strategies, based principally on strengthening system peripheries, inspections, and similar bolt-on techniques add tremendously to cost and do not respond effectively to the growing sophistication of attacks. Systems cannot be assumed to have static boundaries, static user communities, or even a static set of services. To a great extent, systems engineers are inadequately prepared to address system security requirements.

This Security Roadmap is expected to result in systems designs that shield against commonly known attacks, provide cognizance of changes in the threat environment, and are resilient in the face of unexpected attacks. This outcome requires that we are able to efficiently apply security standards, that we improve intelligence gathering capabilities that are relevant to a system’s mission, and that we consider mission assurance a core system capability going forward. In order to do this, a systems engineer will need a clear definition of security, and a way to compare security metrics to other capabilities in the system trade space.

Although this roadmap does draw on existing security standards and processes, it makes no assumption about the utility of historical methodology. Rather, it brings a scientific approach to the study of systems security engineering. By applying empirical scientific methods to the problem of security, it will establish firm evidence that research results will effectively address systemic issues going forward. 

For more information, please contact:

Maia Canlas
Outreach & Communications Manager
Altofer
Room 316
Phone: 201 216-5167
maia.canlas@stevens.edu

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