Forum on Cyber Resilience

National Academy Of Sciences, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

The National Academies Roundtable, the Forum on Cyber Resilience, established in 2015, facilitates and enhances the exchange of ideas among scientists, practitioners, and policy makers concerned with the resilience of computing and communications systems that are embedded in the critical national infrastructures and social systems. Resilience encompasses not only security in the face of attacks, resistance to degradation, and the ability to recover from adverse events, but also broadly interpreted, the capacity for innovation and adaptation with the ability to absorb technological disruption and surprise in a way that reflects societal values, such as privacy, and needs of the infrastructure's many stakeholders. The value of the Forum on Cyber Resilience derives from the ability of the members to choose topics of mutual interest and then enable discussions on these issues among members and experts in a neutral setting, building trust and promoting innovative problem-solving. This National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Forum on Cyber Resilience provides a unique venue for stakeholders from academia, industry, and government to broadly consider resilience technologically along with the societal tensions that may arise among them. The Forum explores critical issues of shared interest, framing critical questions and needs on resilience and incubating activities of value to the participants -- encompassing discussions on research directions, emerging technologies, design and engineering approaches, human-system interactions, policy and social implications, education and workforce considerations, and institutional roles. The Forum supports cross-sector and public-private dialogue about goals and challenges, achieving goals shared by the Forum members and their stakeholders for society, enabling early identification of promising approaches to improve resilience, and exploring case studies to extract lessons applicable in other domains and resilience. The Forum events are open to the public, and their reports are publicly available on the NAS website. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.