Communications of the ACM
The Science of Cyber Security
University of California, Berkeley TRUST director Shankar Sastry
Image credit: University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley's Team for Research in Ubiquitous Secure Technology (TRUST) is developing cybersecurity science and technology designed to change how organizations design, build, and operate trustworthy information systems. One of TRUST's long-term goals is to build a science base that will lead to new cybersecurity defense systems. "We believe what is missing is the science of cybersecurity—a science base, like the kind taught in medical schools, so as to enable doctors to treat and help patients," says Berkeley's Shankar Sastry.
"We want the legacy of TRUST to be the start of this science base, upon which an inherent defense system can be built that will operate almost like the body's in the event of an attack." TRUST's research partners include Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, San Jose State, Stanford, and Vanderbilt universities, as well as Intel, Cisco Systems, IBM, Symantec, and Qualcomm.
TRUST wants to improve anti-identity theft systems and technology that secures sensitive documents such as medical records. For example, TRUST is working with Vanderbilt's medical school on a pilot project to research privacy issues involved with medical and billing information. TRUST also is developing a cybersecurity education program.
From National Science Foundation
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Abstracts Copyright © 2011 Information Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA 
Comments
Anonymous
That's a nice idea but wrong headed. The problem is the intractable one of user management, not identity. What God-like entity decides who gets to see what, and based on which elements? Since my 'what' is not your 'what' who decides if they are close, identical, or different? Identity theft is no more than convincing the holder of an identity assignment authority to give it to someone else. A science cannot be made of "I trust you" since "I" and "trust" and "you" are all subject to extremely subjective interpretation and conditional exceptions. I will say that I'm impressed by the big names behind it and wish them well.
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