Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity is the protection of critical or sensitive information in electronic systems and communications technology from unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized manipulation, and loss of use. In our information-driven world, information protection is crucial for national security and global stability. Since cybersecurity is a multidisciplinary endeavor that includes microelectronics, hardware, software, network, and systems engineering, a holistic approach must also include fundamental expertise in physics, materials science, mathematics, statistics, engineering, and human behavior.
Missions: Cybersecurity cuts across many national security missions. We work closely with industry, universities, national laboratories, DOD, and DOE to develop more secure and more resilient information systems that impact not only military preparedness and operations, but also global commerce and daily civilian life.
Challenges: Information systems are dynamic, distributed, interconnected, complex systems that span many domains and disciplines. The challenge for a cyberdefender is to analyze a system across all domains and disciplines, identify critical or sensitive areas with respect to weaknesses, and create a web of protection against exploits.
CU Strengths: NSI cybersecurity research includes computational and experimental efforts to understand and develop physics-based roots of security at the hardware level, as well as protect against physics-based mechanisms of information leakage. We develop novel microelectronic materials and devices used in computing, storage, and communications technologies.