CICI: CE: Enhancing Cybersecurity for Broadening Data-Driven Research and Partnerships

Purdue University, West Lafayette IN

Investigators

Abstract

As more disciplines leverage computational and data-driven modeling, the security of campus cyberinfrastructure is becoming increasingly important in order to protect intellectual property and secure a competitive advantage for researchers. Often, facilities and projects funded by industrial partners and US government agencies create new institutional requirements for information security and assurance. Designed for open science, the Purdue University campus cyberinfrastructure does not currently have infrastructure in place to support the wide variety of security requirements stemming from this growing volume of aerospace, defense, and industrial projects being conducted on campus. The rapid pace of expanding partnerships has outpaced the campus cybersecurity framework, limiting the opportunities for researchers and students to conduct research. This project brings together engineering and research teams to develop a cyber attack detection and response capability for the Purdue University campus research network. The project enhances the Purdue campus network to develop a security-assured research network infrastructure, and deploys novel adaptive monitoring tools as part of the campus cyberinfrastructure. Enhanced campus cyberinfrastructure empowers domain scientists to conduct research with heightened security requirements. The project also provides cybersecurity researchers with production network traffic data to develop and evaluate adaptive intrusion detection and response and flow-level anomaly detection. The proposed research will reduce the overhead of network security mechanisms, and improve their effectiveness, agility, and scalability. The project supports cybersecurity education and training by engaging students in deployment and operation of networking hardware and software. It provides students with a unique opportunity to apply their conceptual knowledge to practical situations and better prepares them to be part of the future workforce in cybersecurity. The highly interdisciplinary project team consists of security, networking and data science researchers, cybersecurity educators, campus Information Technology professionals and the engineering community.