Scientific Software Security Innovation Institute (S3I2)

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

The scientific enterprise in America requires enterprise class security to assure competitive advantage and efficiently advance discovery and invention. Across NSF funded activities there is pervasive and increasing concern with the availability, integrity, and confidentiality of scientific workflows, resources, data, and personal information. Threats include data loss and corruption due to archive failures or malicious attacks, release of private data maliciously or accidentally, or loss of computational or network capacity due to system software failure or compromise. The good news is that there are a number of common security solutions that support NSF researchers today however support for these is limited and often left to the individual development or project teams This NSF-sponsored workshop will explore the potential for a cross-disciplinary Scientific Software Security Innovation Institute (S3I2) to address the protection, integrity, and reliability of research software, systems, and information. The goal of this workshop is to identify the needs for, and models of, an S3I2 to address secure scientific cyberinfrastructure in the United States. To accomplish this goal, the workshop will bring together representatives from NSF funded projects, researchers, developers, and resource providers. The workshop will cover the topics of: research security needs; existing tools, systems, processes and organizations that secure research activities and data; outstanding issues to be addressed in research assurance; and organization and operational models for a future security institute targeting the identified security needs. The workshop will result in an analysis of these needs and solutions and discuss the advantages of potential models for a S3I2 to address America?s research assurance needs.