DECEMBER 2011

Executive Office of the President

National Science and Technology Council

TRUSTWORTHY CYBERSPACE:

STR ATEGIC PLA N FOR THE 

FEDER A L CY BERSECUR IT Y 

R ESEARCH A ND 

DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

DECEMBER 2011

Executive Office of the President

National Science and Technology Council

TRUSTWORTHY CYBERSPACE:

STR ATEGIC PLA N FOR THE 

FEDER A L CY BERSECUR IT Y 

R ESEARCH A ND 

DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
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About the National Science and Technology Council

The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) is the principal means by which the Executive 

Branch coordinates science and technology policy across the diverse entities that make up the Federal 

research and development enterprise. A primary objective of the NSTC is establishing clear national goals 

for Federal science and technology investments. The NSTC prepares research and development strategies that are coordinated across Federal agencies to form investment packages aimed at accomplishing 

multiple national goals. The work of the NSTC is organized under five committees: Environment, Natural 

Resources and Sustainability; Homeland and National Security; Science, Technology, Engineering, and 

Math (STEM) Education; Science; and Technology. Each of these committees oversees subcommittees 

and working groups focused on different aspects of science and technology. More information is available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/nstc.

About the Office of Science and Technology Policy

The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) was established by the National Science and 

Technology Policy, Organization, and Priorities Act of 1976. OSTP’s responsibilities include advising 

the President in policy formulation and budget development on questions in which science and 

technology are important elements; articulating the President’s science and technology policy and 

programs; and fostering strong partnerships among Federal, state, and local governments, and the 

scientific communities in industry and academia. The Director of OSTP also serves as Assistant to 

the President for Science and Technology and manages the NSTC. More information is available at 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp.

About the Subcommittee on Networking and Information Technology 

Research and Development

The Subcommittee coordinates the multi-agency Networking and Information Technology Research 

and Development (NITRD) Program to help:

• assure continued U.S. leadership in networking and information technology

• satisfy the needs of the Federal government for advanced networking and information technology, and

• accelerate development and deployment of advanced networking and information technology

in order to maintain world leadership in science and engineering, enhance national defense and 

national U.S. productivity and competitiveness and promote long-term economic growth, improve the 

health of the U.S. citizenry, protect the environment, improve education, training, and lifelong learning, and improve the quality of life. It also implements relevant provisions of the High Performance 

Computing Act of 1991 (P.L. 102-194), as amended by the Next Generation Internet Research Act of 

1998 (P. L. 105-305), and the America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in 

Technology, Education and Science (COMPETES) Act of 2007 (P.L. 110-69). For more information, visit 

http://www.nitrd.gov/. 
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About this Document

This report was developed by the Cyber Security and Information Assurance Research and Development 

Senior Steering Group (CSIA R&D SSG) and Cyber Security and Information Assurance Interagency 

Working Group (CSIA IWG). The CSIA R&D SSG and CSIA IWG report to the Subcommittee on Networking 

and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) of the NSTC’s Committee on 

Technology. The report is published by the National Coordination Office (NCO) for the NITRD Program.

Copyright Information

This document is a work of the United States Government and is in the public domain (see 17 U.S.C. 

§105). Subject to the stipulations below, it may be distributed and copied with acknowledgment to NCO. 

Copyrights to graphics included in this document are reserved by the original copyright holders or their 

assignees and are used here under the government’s license and by permission. Requests to use any 

images must be made to the provider identified in the image credits or to NCO if no provider is identified.

Printed in the United States of America, 2011.

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National Science and Technology Council

Chair

John P. Holdren

Assistant to the President for Science and 

Technology

Director, Office of Science and

Technology Policy

Staff

Pedro I. Espina

Executive Director

Committee on Technology

Chair

Aneesh Chopra

Chief Technology Officer of the United States 

Associate Director for Technology, Office of 

Science & Technology Policy

Staff

Pedro I. Espina

Executive Secretary

Subcommittee on Networking and Information

Technology Research and Development

Co-chairs

George O. Strawn

Director, National Coordination Office for 

Networking and Information Technology 

Research and Development

Farnam Jahanian

Assistant Director, Computer and Information 

Science and Engineering Directorate

National Science Foundation

Members

Bryan A. Biegel

Acting Deputy Division Chief, Advanced 

Supercomputing Division

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Robert Chadduck

Principal Technologist for Advanced Research

National Archives and Records Administration

Candace S. Culhane

Computer Systems Researcher

National Security Agency

Pedro I. Espina

Program Analyst

Office of Science & Technology Policy

Douglas Maughan

Division Director, Cyber Security R&D 

Science and Technology Directorate 

Department of Homeland Security 

Robert Meisner

Director, Office of Advanced Simulation and 

Computing 

National Nuclear Security Administration

David Michaud

Director, High Performance Computing & 

Communications Office 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration
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Joel Parriott

Program Examiner

Office of Management and Budget

J. Michael Fitzmaurice

Senior Science Advisor for Information 

Technology

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Douglas Fridsma

Director, Office of Standards and Interoperability, 

Office of the National Coordinator for Health 

Information Technology

Department of Health and Human Services

Marilyn Freeman

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research & 

Technology

Army

Cita M. Furlani

Director, Information Technology Laboratory 

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Daniel A. Hitchcock

Acting Associate Director, Advanced Scientific 

Computing Research 

Office of Science, Department of Energy

Charles J. Holland 

Special Programs, Microsystems Technology 

Office

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

Dai H. Kim

Associate Director, Information Systems & Cyber 

Security ASD(R&E)

Office of the Secretary of Defense

Karin A. Remington

Director, Center for Bioinformatics and 

Computational Biology 

National Institutes of Health

Ralph Wachter

Program Officer, Office of Naval Research

Navy

Gary L. Walter

Computer Scientist, Atmospheric Modeling and 

Analysis Division

Environmental Protection Agency

Lt. Col. Dan Ward

Chief of Acquisition Innovation

Air Force

Staff

Virginia Moore

Executive Secretary
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EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT 

NATIONAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COUNCIL 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20502 

December 6, 2011 

Dear Colleague: 

Today’s cyberspace—the powerful, virtual environment enabled by digital 

infrastructure—provides a bright landscape for commerce, science, education, communication, 

an open and efficient government, and much more. It also harbors threats to security and privacy 

that can limit its uses and potential. Recognizing that America’s prosperity in the 21st century 

hinges on rebalancing cyberspace in favor of benefits and against threats, President Obama 

ordered a top-to-bottom review of the government’s cybersecurity efforts. The resulting strategy 

is detailed in the President’s Cyberspace Policy Review and establishes innovation—including 

through game-changing R&D—as one of its pillars. The President’s Council of Advisors on 

Science and Technology (PCAST) in its 2010 review of the Networking and Information 

Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program also called for transformational R&D 

to assure both the security and robustness of cyber infrastructure. 

This report, Trustworthy Cyberspace: Strategic Plan for the Federal Cybersecurity 

Research and Development Program was developed by the NITRD agencies and directly 

responds to the need for a new cybersecurity R&D strategy. As recommended in the Cyberspace

Policy Review’s near-term action plan, Trustworthy Cyberspace replaces the piecemeal 

approaches of the past with a set of coordinated research priorities whose promise is to “change 

the game,” resulting in a trustworthy cyberspace. As called for in the policy review’s mid-term 

action plan, this plan identifies opportunities to engage the private sector in activities for 

transitioning promising R&D into practice. In addition, and consistent with the PCAST 

recommendations, it prioritizes the development of a “science of security” to derive first 

principles and the fundamental building blocks of security and trustworthiness.

I am pleased to commend this Federal cybersecurity R&D strategic plan as part of the 

Administration’s comprehensive effort to secure the future of the Nation’s digital infrastructure. 

I look forward to working with the Congress, the agencies, the private sector, and the public to 

realize that goal. 

Sincerely,

John P. Holdren 

Assistant to the President for Science and Technology 

Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy 

★ ix ★

Preface

Cyberspace–the globally interconnected information infrastructure that includes the Internet, telecommunications networks, computer systems, and industrial control systems–is rich in opportunities to 

improve the lives of people around the world. Assuring continued growth and innovation in cyberspace 

requires that the public has a well-founded sense of trust in the environment. Increasingly frequent 

malware attacks and financial and intellectual-property thefts must be addressed in order to sustain 

public trust in cyberspace but address real threats to national security.

The Obama Administration recognizes the magnitude of what is at stake. The President’s Cyberspace 

Policy Review1 unequivocally states that the Government has a responsibility to address strategic 

cyberspace vulnerabilities to protect the Nation and to ensure that the United States and its citizens 

can realize the full potential of the information technology revolution. In fulfilling this responsibility, 

Federal research agencies joined together to develop a strategic plan for cybersecurity research and 

development (R&D) that confronts underlying and systemic cyberspace vulnerabilities and takes 

maximum advantage of the Federal government’s unique capabilities as a supporter and champion of 

fundamental research.

In introducing this strategic plan, we would like to highlight three important principles that guided its 

development. First, the research must aim at underlying cybersecurity deficiencies and focus on root 

causes of vulnerabilities–that is, we need to understand and address the causes of cybersecurity problems as opposed to just treating their symptoms. Second, the Strategic Plan must channel expertise and 

resources from a wide range of disciplines and sectors. Cybersecurity is a multi-dimensional problem, 

involving both the strength of security technologies and variability of human behavior. Therefore, solutions will depend not only on expertise in mathematics, computer science, and electrical engineering 

but also in biology, economics, and other social and behavioral sciences. Third, we need enduring 

cybersecurity principles that will allow us to stay secure despite changes in technologies and in the 

threat environment. Whether we use desktop computers, tablets, mobile phones, control systems, 

Internet-enabled household appliances, or other cyberspace-enabled devices yet to be invented, we 

must be able to maintain and fulfill our trust requirements to ensure our continued security and safety.

This strategic plan describes and prioritizes several research themes worthy of further inquiry, and 

end-states and capabilities that must be achieved in order to fundamentally improve cyberspace. The 

Plan does not focus on specific technical problems and challenges, e.g., developing better firewalls or 

more secure operating systems. Rather, by articulating desired end-states and capabilities, the themes 

reveal important underlying causes of cybersecurity vulnerabilities. By defining the end-states, rather 

than the paths to get there, the themes invite a diversity of approaches and encourage innovation across 

disciplines and sectors. Of course, along the way to achieving these larger solutions, many perennial 

problems and technical challenges will have to be solved.

Over the last three years, Federal agencies engaged in an intensive round of public discussions, brainstorming, and detailed examinations of cybersecurity-related technical issues in order to develop the 

1. See http://www.whitehouse.gov/cyberreview/
TRUSTWORTHY CYBERSPACE: STRATEGIC PLAN FOR THE FEDERAL

CYBERSECURITY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

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research themes that are at the heart of this strategic plan. The process of building the Strategic Plan 

began with a Leap-Ahead Initiative—set in motion by the White House Office of Science and Technology 

Policy (OSTP) in April 2008 as a component of the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative. 

That effort solicited public input and received more than 230 responses focused on how to change the 

cybersecurity landscape. These were distilled into five fundamental “game-changing” concepts that 

were then discussed by over 150 innovators from the academic and commercial sectors at the National 

Cyber Leap Year Summit held in August 2009 in Arlington, Virginia. Finally, the outcomes of the summit 

were distilled into the research themes articulated in this strategic plan.

Cybersecurity is a shared responsibility across the public and private sectors. Thus, the execution of this 

cybersecurity research strategy will require the participation of a broad spectrum of public and private 

stakeholders. Indeed, much of the U.S. cyber infrastructure is privately held—and many private industries 

(e.g., financial, healthcare, energy enterprises) have interests in the protection of intellectual property 

(IP) and the assurance of secure business transactions—so shielding that infrastructure against acts of 

industrial espionage and securing it against IP theft are critically important to private-sector entities. 

Similarly, the academic community has interests in a secure cyberspace that enables open collaboration, sharing of data, and protection of the vital infrastructure that supports fundamental research and 

discoveries.

Critical cybersecurity challenges in national priority areas such as healthcare, energy, financial services, 

and defense can be confronted by focusing R&D activities within the framework of this strategic plan. 

In support of national priorities, government agencies are coordinating efforts with partners in research 

areas that warrant broader support and collaboration. For example, the National Science Foundation 

(NSF) is supporting basic research into areas such as the science of security, while the Department of 

Homeland Security (DHS) is focusing on applied research and transition to practice activities. Several 

agencies, such as NSF, DHS, and DARPA, have already included some of the research themes described in 

this plan in their recent solicitations. The Federal agencies are also coordinating support for cybersecurity 

education and activities designed to foster a vibrant cybersecurity R&D community.

Taking advantage of the inherent public-private nature of the problem, the Strategic Plan calls for 

bringing together researchers, small businesses, and venture capitalists in the creation of technology 

demonstration forums to showcase technologies that have potential for further prototyping and/or 

commercialization. This approach allows for maximum implementation flexibility as the challenges 

evolve with changing technology. The NITRD Program will continue to coordinate the Federal portion 

of these activities across government agencies.

We are confident that the public-private research activities in this strategic plan will result in new capabilities and technologies that will unlock the full potential of a safe, secure, and reliable cyberspace.

Sincerely,

Douglas Maughan, DHS S&T

William Newhouse, NIST

Co-Chairs

NITRD Cyber Security and Information Assurance Interagency Working Group (CSIA IWG)
★ xi ★

NITRD Cyber Security and Information Assurance Research and 

Development Senior Steering Group (CSIA R&D SSG)

Members

Cita M. Furlani

Director, Information Technology Laboratory

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Steven King

Deputy Director, Cyber Security Technology

Assistant Secretary of Defense (Research & 

Engineering)

Office of the Secretary of Defense

Mark Luker

Associate Director

National Coordination Office for Networking 

and Information Technology Research and 

Development

Brad Martin

Science and Technology Lead for Cyber

Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Keith Marzullo

Director, Computer and Network Systems Division

Computer & Information Science & Engineering 

Directorate

National Science Foundation

Douglas Maughan

Division Director, Cyber Security R&D 

Science and Technology Directorate 

Department of Homeland Security

Patricia A. Muoio

Chief, Trusted Systems Research Group

National Security Agency

Staff

Tomas Vagoun

Technical Coordinator, Cyber Security and 

Information Assurance

National Coordination Office for Networking 

and Information Technology Research and 

Development

Table of Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1. Why a Strategic Plan? 1

2. Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

3. Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Program Thrusts . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

3.1 Inducing Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Designed-in Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Tailored Trustworthy Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Moving Target . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

Cyber Economic Incentives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

3.2 Developing Scientific Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

3.3 Maximizing Research Impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Supporting National Priorities 12

Engaging the Cybersecurity Research Community 13

3.4 Accelerating Transition to Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Technology Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Test and Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Transition, Adoption, and Commercialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

4. Executing the Federal Cybersecurity Research Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

4.1 Research Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

4.2 Research Coordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

4.3 Research Execution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

References 18

Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

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Summary

Trustworthy Cyberspace: Strategic Plan for the Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Program 

defines a set of interrelated priorities for the agencies of the U.S. government that conduct or sponsor 

research and development (R&D) in cybersecurity. 

The priorities are organized into four thrusts: Inducing 

Change, Developing Scientific Foundations, Maximizing 

Research Impact, and Accelerating Transition to Practice. 

The thrusts provide a framework for prioritizing cybersecurity R&D in a way that concentrates research efforts on 

limiting current cyberspace deficiencies, precluding future 

problems, and expediting the infusion of research accomplishments into the marketplace. The principal objectives of 

the thrusts include achieving greater cyberspace resiliency, 

improving attack prevention, developing new defenses, 

and enhancing our capabilities to design software that is 

resistant to attacks. 

The Inducing Change thrust includes a new priority theme 

named Designed-in Security, together with the existing themes of Tailored Trustworthy Spaces, Moving 

Target, and Cyber Economic Incentives. The Designed-in Security theme focuses on developing capabilities to design and evolve high-assurance systems resistant to cyber attacks, whose assurance properties 

can be verified. Such development capabilities offer the path to dramatic increases in the security and 

safety of software systems.

Explicit in the execution of this plan is the coordination process across government agencies through 

the Federal Networking and Information Technology R&D (NITRD) Program and the leadership function 

of the NITRD Cyber Security and Information Assurance Interagency Working Group (CSIA IWG), the 

Federal government’s principal group for coordinating cybersecurity R&D activities. In conjunction with 

the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), the NITRD Senior Steering Group for 

Cybersecurity R&D, and the Special Cyber Operations Research and Engineering (SCORE) Interagency 

Working Group, the CSIA IWG assures that the execution of this plan by individual Federal research 

agencies is coordinated, cohesive, and complementary.

1. Why a Strategic Plan?

Today, the nation faces significant challenges in all areas of cybersecurity.2 The prevalent cybersecurity 

R&D approaches of incremental, piecemeal efforts driven by the individual interests of researchers or 

solution providers are not sufficient to respond to present or future threats. A more effective strategy 

2. For further analysis, see “Cyberspace Policy Review: Assuring a Trusted and Resilient Information and 

Communications Infrastructure,”

http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/Cyberspace_Policy_Review_final.pdf.

Maximizing 

Research 

Impact 

Accelerating 

Transition to 

Practice 

Developing 

Scientific 

Foundations 

Inducing 

Change 
TRUSTWORTHY CYBERSPACE: STRATEGIC PLAN FOR THE FEDERAL

CYBERSECURITY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

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is to establish a coordinated cybersecurity R&D effort (see Section 4.2 “Research Coordination”) whose 

research goals and activities derive from an explicit framework that compels the changes necessary 

to assure a more secure future in cyberspace. Within the framework, the Federal government has a 

unique role and responsibility: It must drive fundamental change by investing in the kind of long-term 

basic research that can improve cyber safety and security for people, computer systems and networks, 

information, and critical national infrastructures. Government investment in basic research is essential 

because industry does not have the economic interest or return-on-investment time horizon to make 

such investments or conduct such research. Government investments in the networking of universities 

and research laboratories, which gave rise to the worldwide Internet, have paid off many times over for 

society and individuals around the world. Additionally, this plan identifies areas for fruitful public-private 

partnerships with a focus on government priorities.

Failure to respond to cybersecurity challenges from a position of strength carries enormous penalties; 

investing in incremental improvements only allows the consequences of the lack of cybersecurity to 

grow more severe and provides no real protection against determined adversaries. Cyber criminals and 

nation-state actors are extremely persistent and cunning: They steal the intellectual property that drives 

innovation in businesses and the credentials that allow individuals legitimate access to health, financial, 

communications, and other services. They alter information to impair decision-making and corrupt or 

commandeer command-and-control systems. They cause harm by compromising cyber-physical systems and by engaging in systemic denial of service. They invade, sabotage, and corrupt networks and 

systems, and otherwise engage in increasingly disruptive activities. They show talent in adapting their 

tactics in dangerous ways that can cripple businesses, governments, and global economic and political 

ecosystems. Without strong leadership and a coordinated strategy to unite public and private entities 

against these forces, the risks of operating in cyberspace may become untenable for most citizens and 

enterprises, and may critically impair the operational capabilities and integrity of open governments 

and civil societies.3

2. Objectives

A primary objective of the Federal cybersecurity R&D strategic plan is to express a vision for the research 

necessary to develop game-changing technologies that can neutralize the attacks on the cyber systems 

of today and lay the foundation for a scientific approach that better prepares the field to meet the challenges of securing the cyber systems of tomorrow. As a strategic plan, this document provides guidance 

for Federal agencies, policymakers, researchers, budget analysts, and the public in determining how to 

direct limited resources into activities that have the greatest potential to generate the greatest impact. 

The strategic plan profiles R&D areas that span multiple disciplines, surfacing intersections of common 

interest that hold potential for stimulating collaboration among researchers and technical experts in 

government, private industry, academia, and international contexts. The strategic plan also offers ideas 

for decision-makers to consider when deliberating about investments in cybersecurity science and 

3. For further data on the size and nature of threats, see, for example, “Fiscal Year 2010 Report to Congress on the 

Implementation of The Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002,”

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/egov_docs/FY10_FISMA.pdf.
3. Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Program Thrusts

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technology in their respective domains. The strategic plan represents the culmination of several years of 

exploration and examination of cybersecurity issues by government representatives in the NITRD Senior 

Steering Group for Cybersecurity R&D, the NITRD Cyber Security and Information Assurance Interagency 

Working Group, and the Special Cyber Operations Research and Engineering Interagency Working 

Group, as well as by the cybersecurity community. The ideas distilled from the planning process garner 

widespread support and serve in this plan as waypoints to guide us along a path that can significantly 

advance the field of cybersecurity.

3. Federal Cybersecurity Research and 

Development Program Thrusts

The Federal cybersecurity R&D program is characterized by the following strategic thrusts to organize 

activities and drive progress in cybersecurity R&D:

Inducing Change – Utilizing game-changing themes to direct efforts towards understanding the 

underlying root causes of known current threats with the goal of disrupting the status quo with radically different approaches to improve the security of the critical cyber systems and infrastructure that 

serve society.

Developing Scientific Foundations – Developing an organized, cohesive scientific foundation to 

the body of knowledge that informs the field of cybersecurity through adoption of a systematic, rigorous, and disciplined scientific approach. Promotes the discovery of laws, hypothesis testing, repeatable 

experimental designs, standardized data-gathering methods, metrics, common terminology, and critical 

analysis that engenders reproducible results and rationally based conclusions.

Maximizing Research Impact – Catalyzing integration across the game-changing R&D themes, 

cooperation between governmental and private-sector communities, collaboration across international 

borders, and strengthened linkages to other national priorities, such as health IT and Smart Grid.

Accelerating Transition to Practice – Focusing efforts to ensure adoption and implementation of the 

powerful new technologies and strategies that emerge from the research themes, and the activities to 

build a scientific foundation so as to create measurable improvements in the cybersecurity landscape.

3.1 Inducing Change

The strategic plan advances carefully considered research themes to converge a broad range of research 

and development activities on delivering technologies that improve the trustworthiness of cyberspace. 

The purpose of the research themes is to focus research activities on characteristics that are essential to 

the desired end-states of trustworthy systems. The themes provide opportunities for synergy among 

researchers with different subject-matter expertise who otherwise might concentrate only on a particular property or behavior of trustworthy systems. As such, the themes provide an operational flavor 

to research directions.
TRUSTWORTHY CYBERSPACE: STRATEGIC PLAN FOR THE FEDERAL

CYBERSECURITY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

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The cybersecurity research themes in this plan share characteristics that shape, direct, and facilitate a 

coherent and coordinated R&D agenda. The themes compel a new way of operating or doing business, 

and give focus to underlying causes in order to bring about change. The themes are fundamentally 

interdisciplinary, draw upon a number of sciences and technologies, and foster synergy among researchers. The themes encourage an adversarial perspective in the conduct of research and in endeavors 

that closely examine the security, reliability, resiliency, privacy, usability, and overall trustworthiness 

of digital infrastructure. With activities and engagements that may span multiple years and require 

measurable achievements, the themes present a 

logical path from research to transition, deployment, and cooperation with the private sector.

A cybersecurity research theme may evolve and expand to include more complex topics, as knowledge 

improves and clarity is gained in matters unclear at the inception of a theme. Likewise, as our understanding of cyberspace matures, there may be a need to add new themes or theme focus areas.

This strategic plan introduces one new Federal cybersecurity R&D theme and expands upon the three 

themes introduced in FY 2010, which emerged from National Cyber Leap Year4 activities. In short, the 

themes are as follows:

Designed-In Security (New Theme) – Builds the capability to design, develop, and evolve highassurance, software-intensive systems predictably and reliably while effectively managing risk, cost, 

schedule, quality, and complexity. Promotes tools and environments that enable the simultaneous 

development of cyber-secure systems and the associated assurance evidence necessary to prove the 

system’s resistance to vulnerabilities, flaws, and attacks. Secure, best practices are built inside the system. 

Consequently, it becomes possible to evolve software-intensive systems more rapidly in response to 

changing requirements and environments.

Tailored Trustworthy Spaces – Provides flexible, adaptive, distributed trust environments that can 

support functional and policy requirements arising from a wide spectrum of activities in the face of an 

evolving range of threats. Recognizes the user’s context and evolves as the context evolves.

Moving Target – Enables us to create, analyze, evaluate, and deploy mechanisms and strategies that 

are diverse and that continually shift and change over time to increase complexity and cost for attackers, 

limit the exposure of vulnerabilities and opportunities for attack, and increase system resiliency.

Cyber Economic Incentives – Develops effective incentives to make cybersecurity ubiquitous, 

including incentives affecting individuals and organizations. Incentives may involve market-based, 

legal, regulatory, or institutional interventions. Recognizes that sound economic incentives need to be 

based on sound metrics, including scientifically valid cost risk analysis methods, and to be associated 

with sensible and enforceable notions of liability and care. Requires advances in understanding the 

4. The National Cyber Leap Year summit was held in 2009. The summit gathered innovators from the academic and 

commercial sectors for an unconventional exploration of five fundamentally game-changing concepts in cybersecurity. 

For more information, see http://cybersecurity.nitrd.gov. 

Cybersecurity R&D Themes

Designed-in Security

Tailored Trustworthy Spaces

Moving Target

Cyber Economic Incentives
3. Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Program Thrusts

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motivations and vulnerabilities of both markets and humans, and how these factors affect and interact 

with technical systems.

This strategic plan establishes the four cybersecurity R&D themes to unify a variety of research and 

development activities by focusing the cybersecurity research community on a common set of problems. 

The intent of each theme is to delineate the scope of a compelling hard problem in cybersecurity against 

which there can be a focused Federal investment to inspire and foster new ideas, and to engender 

innovative, game-changing solutions. The four themes are multiyear challenges to sustain and focus 

R&D activities over time; there is no requirement to drop a theme to accommodate a new theme. While 

the four R&D themes give focus to research endeavors with the most promising impact on national 

cybersecurity issues, they do not obviate the need for agencies to undertake other research activities 

that are important to their missions.

We recognize that the trustworthiness of cyberspace is not a fixed end-state, but a dynamic state, in 

which there is a continuous process of defensive adjustments and anticipatory adaptations. Moreover, 

in cyberspace environments related to national security and military activities, there must be a fundamental assumption that the environment is suspect and that its trustworthiness must be continuously 

monitored and analyzed. Both the dynamic state of cyberspace trustworthiness and the requirement 

for operational adaptation serve as a critical backdrop to the discussion of the R&D themes below.

In the sections that follow, the strategic plan identifies and describes the characteristics of the four 

cybersecurity research themes. Included are perspectives on the types of cybersecurity R&D activities 

that may engender game-changing technologies and solutions applicable to these paradigms. 

Designed-in Security

The Designed-in Security (DIS) theme focuses on designing and producing software systems that are 

resistant to attacks by dramatically reducing the number of exploitable flaws. Using assurance-focused 

engineering practices, languages, and tools, software developers will be able to develop a system while 

simultaneously generating the assurance artifacts necessary to attest to the level of confidence in the 

system’s capabilities to withstand attack. 

Over the past ten years, the field has shown substantial progress in methods for detecting flaws in software through static and dynamic analysis, producing checkable proofs that demonstrate that software is 

free of classes of flaws and proving that algorithms and their implementations have desired properties.5

This progress gives impetus to the new Designed-in Security research theme, whose intent is to stimulate, accelerate, and focus research in the many disciplines that contribute to the design and delivery 

of large-scale software systems that require verifiable assurance of the system’s resistance to attack.

The DIS research theme focuses on building the capability to design, develop, and evolve high-assurance 

software-intensive systems predictably and reliably while effectively managing risk, cost, schedule, 

quality, and complexity. Assurance-focused engineering practices can simultaneously develop a system 

and the evidence needed to support its assurance case, yielding game-changing reductions in cost 

5. For further information, see, for example, “Build Security In,” a software assurance strategic initiative of the National 

Cyber Security Division at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security,

https://buildsecurityin.us-cert.gov/bsi/home.html.
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and increases in agility and flexibility over existing approaches that focus on after-the-fact assurance. 

This can also enable rapid evolution and tailoring of systems initially developed using these practices.

A key focus within this theme is on the usability of tools for developing attack-resistant software systems. 

Improving the usability of tools for specifying, implementing, analyzing, and testing software, and for 

composing systems of software components, is essential in order to gain their widespread adoption by 

developers, whose participation is needed in order to change the game. The impact of DIS is intended 

to extend to the development and evolution of mainstream software ecosystems and infrastructures. 

Future software ecosystems and infrastructures that employ this cost-effective method for producing 

and evolving high-assurance systems can lay a new, sound foundation for cyber civilization.

The ecosystem within which DIS-hardened software components and systems operate necessarily 

includes hardware components. As a holistic approach, the DIS theme may extend to the secure design, 

fabrication, and testing of hardware in its manufacture and assembly. Implementing techniques to 

protect and enable secure hardware design and manufacturing processes can contribute to the overall 

assurance case for systems in terms of both supply chain trust and infrastructure provisioning.

This theme affords intermediate payoffs, given that an assurance case entails reasoning about a diversity 

of quality attributes (security, safety, reliability, etc.), each of which has its own approaches to creating 

evidence. This enables a trade-off between complexity in models and programming language for the 

capability to achieve high levels of assurance. Consequently, as progress is made in the overall program 

of effort, higher levels of assurance can be reached for more attributes, for more complex systems, and 

with greater affordance in systems evolution.

The research challenges of this theme include:

• The design of models and techniques to support on-the-fly evidence creation during a systems 

engineering process

• Mathematically sound techniques to support combination of models and composition of results 

from separate components

• Analysis techniques (based on model checking, abstract interpretation, semantics-based testing, 

and/or verification) to enable traceable linking among diverse models and code

• Language design, processing, and tooling techniques that are oriented to achieving high assurance for systems with high levels of capability, modularity, and flexibility

• Team and supply chain practices to facilitate composition of assurance in the supply chain

• Tooling to support information management, configuration management, and developer/

team interaction to support rapid and automatic management of the chains of evidence linking 

software code, models, analysis results, etc.

• Psychology and human factors for how to build software specification, implementation, verification, analysis, and testing tools that are easy to use and provide positive feedback to users

• Economics to improve motivation for use of tools through measurement of improved reliability 

and security
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Tailored Trustworthy Spaces 

Today, cyberspace is composed of subsystems that lack mechanisms to ascertain their security conditions and to participate in creating environments with required trust and provenance characteristics. 

The absence of mechanisms to establish trust has made cyberspace vulnerable to illicit exploitations. 

Tailored Trustworthy Spaces (TTS) provide flexible, adaptive, distributed trust environments that can 

support functional and policy requirements arising from a wide spectrum of activities in the face of an 

evolving range of threats. A TTS recognizes the user’s context and evolves as the context evolves. A TTS 

enforces the user’s chosen level of trust, ranging from a fully anonymous transaction to a trusted transaction with strong attribution and traceable authentication. The user is informed of the levels of trust 

available and chooses to accept the protections and risks of a particular tailored space. The attributes of 

each available trusted space must be expressible in an understandable way to support informed choice. 

The attributes must be made manifest and readily usable to support being customized, negotiated, 

adapted, and enforced. All parties to the transaction must agree on the level of trust enforced by the 

underlying infrastructure.

The power of the tailored trustworthy spaces theme lies in the capability to:

• Articulate and negotiate the security requirements of the situation at hand

• Adjust the assurance level on specific security attributes separately

• Establish trust between systems based on verifiable information 

The primary goal of the tailored spaces theme is to identify and develop a common framework that 

supports varying trustworthy space policies and services for different types of actions. These policies and 

services will provide visibility into rules and attributes of the space to inform trust decisions, a contextspecific set of trust services, and a means for negotiating the boundaries and rules of the space. This 

framework will offer assurance that user requirements are accurately articulated in the TTS policy, that 

these spaces are truly separate, and that build-up and tear-down of the space is clean and trustworthy.

The challenge of tailored spaces is to provide the separation, isolation, policy articulation, negotiation, 

and requisite assurances necessary to support specific cyber sub-spaces. Research is required to develop:

• Trust negotiation tools and data trust models to support negotiation of policy

• Type-safe languages and application verification, and tools for establishment of identity or 

authentication as specified by the policy

• Data protection tools, access control management, and monitoring and compliance verification 

mechanisms to allow for informed trust of the entire transaction path

• Resource and cost analysis tools

• Hardware mechanisms that support secure boot load and continuous monitoring of critical 

software

• Least-privilege separation kernels to ensure separation and platform trust in untrustworthy 

environments
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• Application and operating systems elements that can provide strong assurance that the program semantics cannot be altered during execution

• Support for application-aware anonymity to allow for anonymous web access, and platform 

security mechanisms and trust-in-platform 

Focus Area ➡ Wireless Mobile Networks

Current security solutions are often not readily applicable in the mobile wireless context due to size, 

processing, and power constraints imposed by mobile devices. Yet, in order to achieve end-to-end 

trusted cyber subspaces, wireless technologies must support TTS capabilities that integrate with TTS 

capabilities in traditional wired and fixed networks. This focus area highlights the need for robust TTS 

R&D activities to ensure that the rapidly growing wireless domain can fully benefit from, and participate 

in, TTS solutions and technologies. 

Moving Target 

Currently, attackers have the advantage of being able to exploit our systems. The systems we use are 

deterministic, homogeneous, and static, allowing investments in attack to pay off due to unchanging 

vulnerability windows. When vulnerabilities endure, attackers have the ability to lie in wait, develop 

attacks, and compromise systems at their own pace. Moving Target (MT) strategies aim to substantially 

increase the cost of attacks by deploying and operating networks and systems in a manner that makes 

them less deterministic, less homogeneous, and less static.

Research into MT technologies will enable us to create, analyze, evaluate, and deploy mechanisms and 

strategies that are diverse and that continually shift and change over time to increase complexity and 

cost for attackers, limit the exposure of vulnerabilities and opportunities for attack, and increase system 

resiliency. The characteristics of an MT system are dynamically altered in ways that are manageable by 

the defender yet make the attack space appear unpredictable to the attacker.

This game-changing approach challenges the traditional approach, which counsels that adding complexity to our systems also adds risk. Conversely, the complexity of today’s computational platforms 

and analytic and control methods can now be used to frustrate our adversaries. The challenge is to 

demonstrate that complexity is indeed a benefit and not a liability.

The MT area has its underpinnings in fundamental research in the following supporting or component 

areas: virtualization, multi-core processing, new networking standards, cryptography, system management, software application development, and health-inspired or evolutionary resiliency and defense 

methods.

Research is required to:

• Develop abstractions and methods that will enable scientific reasoning regarding MT mechanisms and their effectiveness

• Characterize the vulnerability space and understand the effect of system randomization on the 

ability to exploit those vulnerabilities
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• Understand the effect of randomization of individual components on the behavior of complex 

systems, with respect to both their resiliency and their ability to evade threats

• Develop a control mechanism that can abstract the complexity of MT systems and enable sound, 

resilient system management

• Enable the adaptation of MT mechanisms as the understanding of system behavior matures 

and our threat evolves

Focus Area ➡ Deep Understanding of Cyberspace

To operate effectively as a moving target in cyberspace, we must understand our system state, be aware 

of our surroundings, know the soundness of the structures on which we rely, and know what is happening around us. Cyberspace is complex, and moving target techniques will increase that complexity. 

Actions in cyberspace are instantaneous. If we are to manage our moving target capabilities effectively 

and instantaneously in the face of this complexity, we must greatly enhance our ability to monitor, 

model, analyze, and understand our own system, the systems in cyberspace with which it interacts, 

and the threat environment at that point in time. If we are to make these decisions within the tight time 

constraints of cyber actions, we must greatly enhance the speed of our complex analytics and tighten 

our feedback loops. Ultimately, we must provide knowledge-driven systems that remove the human 

from the loop in many system decisions. But for those decisions that do require human decision-making, 

the combination of high complexity and short processing time strains human cognitive processes, so we 

must provide novel methods of presenting information, directing attention, and navigating between 

analytics at different scales. We must also provide capabilities that enable a deep, not just comprehensive, understanding of cyberspace. Our methods must enable us to view the situation from alternative 

points of view and to get below surface indicators to determine underlying causes and conditions.

Focus Area ➡ Nature-Inspired Solutions

There are many natural systems that are far more complex than our cyber systems but are nonetheless 

extremely robust, resilient, and effective. The biological immune systems that many organisms use to 

defend against invaders function remarkably well in distributed, complex, and ever-changing environments, even when subject to a continuous barrage of attacks. They exhibit a wealth of interesting 

mechanisms that can be the inspiration for many new MT methods for securing cyber systems. 

There are several immunological principles, such as distributed processing, pathogenic pattern recognition, multilayered protection, decentralized control, diversity, and signaling, that could result in the development of novel approaches to solve problems of cybersecurity: for example, early and dependable 

detection and recognition of information attacks, rational utilization of network resources to minimize 

damage and enable a fast recovery, and development of successful ways to prevent further attacks. With 

this new awareness of their health and safety, the network and host components can deploy a range 

of options: They may take preventative measures, rejecting requests that do not fit the profile of what 

is good; they can build immunological responses to the malicious agents that they sense in real time; 

they may refine the evidence they capture for the pathologist, as a diagnosis of last resort, or to support 

the development of new prevention methods.
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Cyber Economic Incentives 

Cybersecurity practices lag behind technology. Solutions exist for many of the threats introduced by 

casual adversaries, but these solutions are not widely used because incentives are not aligned with 

objectives and resources are not correctly allocated. 

Secure practices must be incentivized if cybersecurity is to become ubiquitous. Sound economic 

incentives need to be based on sound metrics, processes that enable assured development, sensible 

and enforceable notions of liability, and mature cost risk analysis methods. Without a scientific framework, it is difficult to incentivize good cybersecurity practices and subsequently to make a convincing 

business case for enhanced cybersecurity mechanisms or processes. The projected benefits must be 

quantified to demonstrate that they outweigh the costs incurred by the implementation of improved 

cybersecurity measures. There are no sound metrics to indicate how secure a system is, so one cannot 

articulate how much more secure it would be with additional investment. There is no scientific basis 

for cost risk analysis, and business decisions are often based on anecdotes or un-quantified arguments 

of goodness. Currently, it is also very difficult to collect the large body of data needed to develop a 

good statistical understanding of cyberspace without compromising the privacy of individuals or the 

reputation of companies. The means to identify and re-align cyber economic incentives and to provide 

a science-based understanding of markets, decision making, and motivators must be investigated.

Research is required to:

• Explore models of cybersecurity investment and markets

• Develop data models, ontologies, and automatic means of sanitizing data or making data 

anonymous 

• Define meaningful cybersecurity metrics and actuarial tables

• Improve the economic viability of assured software development methods; provide methods 

to support personal data ownership

• Provide knowledge in support of laws, regulations, and international agreements

3.2 Developing Scientific Foundations

Cyber systems that inspire trust and confidence, protect the privacy and integrity of data resources, and 

perform reliably are of great importance to society. In anticipation of the challenges in securing the cyber 

systems of the future, we must develop an organized, cohesive foundation to the body of knowledge 

that informs the field of cybersecurity. That is the subject of the second thrust of this strategic plan. 

Currently, we spend considerable intellectual energy on a patchwork of targeted, tactical activities, some 

of which lead to significant breakthroughs while others result in a seemingly endless chase to remedy 

individual vulnerabilities with solutions of limited scope. A more fruitful way to ground research efforts, 

and to nurture and sustain progress in the kinds of improved cybersecurity solutions that benefit society, 

is to develop a science of security. Developing a strong, rigorous scientific foundation to cybersecurity 

helps the field in the following ways:
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• Organizes disparate areas of knowledge – Provides structure and organization to a broad-based 

body of knowledge in the form of testable models and predictions

• Enables discovery of universal laws – Produces laws that express an understanding of basic, 

universal dynamics against which to test problems and formulate explanations

• Applies the rigor of the scientific method – Approaches problems using a systematic methodology and discipline to formulate hypotheses, design and execute repeatable experiments, and 

collect and analyze data

The science of security has the potential of producing universal laws that are predictive and transcend 

specific systems, attacks, and defenses. Within ten years, our aim is to develop a body of laws that apply 

to real-world settings and provide explanatory value. With these laws, we anticipate being able to reason 

about classes of entities and develop rubrics that channel research activities into more productive paths.

The scientific approach can facilitate the development of constructs that enable us to draw general 

conclusions or develop solutions that work for a class of problems. The scientific approach may prove 

or disprove laws that provide the scientific bases for engineered cybersecurity solutions, or validate or 

invalidate laws through experimentation. For example, we may posit a law that states that a dynamic 

defense increases the differential cost of attack. Experiments may validate or invalidate such a law.

The science of security will draw on a range of scientific methods. It is not limited to the traditional, 

formal mathematical model of reasoning, but extends to experimental science, simulation and data 

exploration, field studies, social and behavioral science, and principles of engineering. Many scientific 

investigations in security can benefit from a hypothesis-driven analytic approach with well-designed 

experiments. Employing common terminology will foster shared frames of reference to enable clear 

and precise communications. In support of this type of science, we must consider the means to provide 

shared data sets, agreed-upon test methods, and readily available test facilities. These capabilities can 

help provide repeatability, robust scientific discourse, grounding for research decisions, and the ability 

to guide new research efforts.

As we move the discourse forward to lay the scientific foundation for cybersecurity, we recognize many 

broad-based considerations for prospective scientific contributions. Initially, we expect the government 

portfolio portion of the science of security to support activities that investigate fundamental laws and 

enable repeatable experimentation to increase our understanding of the underlying principles of securing complex networked systems. We expect these activities to be intellectually aggressive and include 

high-risk, multidisciplinary explorations. In the future, as our understanding matures, we anticipate 

calling out more specific focus areas for science of security research, such as the science of complexity, 

network science, experimentation-at-scale, etc. 

Research is required to develop:

• Methods to model adversaries

• Techniques for component, policy, and system composition

• A control theory for maintaining security in the presence of partially successful attacks

• Sound methods for integrating humans in the system: usability and security
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• Quantifiable, forward-looking security metrics (using formal and stochastic modeling methods)

• Measurement methodologies and testbeds for security properties

• Comprehensive, open, and anonymized data repositories

3.3 Maximizing Research Impact

President Obama said in May 2009, “America’s economic prosperity in the 21st century will depend on 

cybersecurity.” This pronouncement has ignited a national-level focus on cybersecurity and the need 

to maximize the impact of R&D on our cybersecurity posture. 

Supporting National Priorities 

The cybersecurity research themes described in this plan provide a framework within which Federal 

R&D agencies can address the cybersecurity R&D requirements associated with our national priorities. 

For example, key cybersecurity challenges in the healthcare, energy, financial services, and defense 

sectors can be confronted by focusing R&D activities within the framework of the themes. In addition, 

Federal agencies can leverage the research themes to resolve problems related to establishing and 

ensuring trusted identities in cyberspace, and to bolster cybersecurity education and training for all 

cyber-active citizens. The following examples of programs and initiatives highlight the influence of the 

outlined research themes on national priority areas: 

• Health IT—The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Strategic Health 

IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) Program, is developing security and risk mitigation policies and the technologies necessary to build and preserve the public trust as health IT systems 

gain widespread use. 

• Smart Grid—The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently released guidelines for Smart Grid cybersecurity (NISTIR 7226) that leverage cybersecurity research themes.

• Financial Services—The Department of Homeland Security’s Directorate for Science and 

Technology (DHS S&T), NIST, and the Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council (FSSCC) 

signed an agreement forming a partnership for cybersecurity innovation.

• National Defense—Building on research associated with the Deep Understanding of Cyberspace 

focus area of the Moving Target theme, the Department of Defense is able to develop approaches 

to the monitoring and attribution of perpetrators of cyber attacks.

• Transportation—The Department of Transportation, in conjunction with several other agencies 

and industry, is sponsoring research to develop an understanding of cybersecurity and system 

reliability in surface vehicles, aircraft, and other modes of transportation, and to support wireless 

infrastructure and applications for surface and air transportation.

• Trusted Identities—The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) articulates the priority to develop an identity ecosystem where individuals and organizations utilize 

secure, efficient, easy-to-use, and interoperable identity solutions to access online services in 

a manner that promotes confidence, privacy, choice, and innovation. R&D that is focused on 
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privacy-enhancing technologies, Tailored Trustworthy Spaces, usability, and Cyber Economic 

Incentives will help shape the identity ecosystem necessary to support Trusted Identities. NITRD 

is designated as the single lead within the Federal government for research relevant to NSTIC.

• Cybersecurity Education—The National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) aims to 

enhance the overall cybersecurity posture of the United States by accelerating the availability 

of educational and training resources designed to improve the cyber behavior, skills, and 

knowledge of every segment of the population, enabling a safer cyberspace for all.

Research efforts that align with this strategic plan will address the characteristics that are essential to 

the desired end states or identify the improvements required to meet these key objectives.

Engaging the Cybersecurity Research Community 

An important effect of this strategic plan is that it provides a basis for discussion among researchers 

aligned to common objectives. The plan includes a component to engage the academic and commercial 

research communities in stimulating, continuous conversations on cyber threats and on the capabilities 

required to thwart the threats. 

In support of this engagement component, for example, the SCORE IWG is conducting a series of 

workshops in 2011 to examine the key assumptions that underlie current security architectures. 

Challenging the key assumptions may open up possibilities for generating novel solutions that reflect 

a fundamentally different understanding of the problem. Examining key assumptions may also result in 

validating well-founded assumptions, thereby providing an even stronger basis for moving forward on 

them. The workshop series focuses on the assumptions that “Defense in Depth is a Smart Investment,” 

“Trust Anchors are Invulnerable,” “Distributed Data Schemes Provide Security,” and “Abnormal Behavior 

Detection Finds Malicious Actors.”

In 2011, the NITRD Senior Steering Group for Cybersecurity R&D is sponsoring a workshop to bring 

together experts to focus on Tailored Trustworthy Spaces. Multiple sectors, such as Smart Grid or Health 

IT, have a requirement for customizable, private, and secure environments in which to share information and conduct transactions. In the TTS workshop, participants will develop key use cases, identify 

capabilities needed to address use cases in these sectors, define pilot projects, and inform Federal R&D. 

Development of technologies and systems that provide the means to establish trusted cyber-subspaces 

for authorized and appropriate participants and transactions holds the promise of improving the delivery 

of services in the healthcare, Smart Grid, and financial services sectors. 

In addition, individual agencies will continue to engage the research community through solicitations 

and grants, providing opportunities to support the strategic thrusts directly via the agencies’ portfolios. 

For example, the 2010 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Clean-Slate Design of 

Resilient, Adaptive, Secure Hosts (CRASH) Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) provides research funding for biologically inspired cyber-attack resilience, an element of the Moving Target theme. The 2011 

DHS S&T Cyber Security Research and Development BAA provides funding to all the strategic research 

themes.

In the research community, we intend to make use of multiple avenues and opportunities for engagement. This includes using virtual organizations to promote interaction among disciplines, across sectors, 
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and between the theme areas to pursue progress in cybersecurity. We intend to provide more opportunities for coordination across Federal agencies and with the private sector through mechanisms such as 

the NITRD program. We expect to put greater focus on the implementation of the research infrastructure 

that emerges from work on Tailored Trustworthy Spaces, Moving Target, Cyber Economic Incentives, 

and Designed-in Security. The goal is to enable further research on the effectiveness, viability, and 

interdependencies of these concepts and technologies. We envision progress by facilitating the early 

deployment and testing of game-changing cybersecurity prototypes and approaches in advanced 

computing environments and leading edge IT services.

Although our national-level initiatives focus on research activities within the United States, cyberspace—with its vast interaction space of information, markets, and services—knows no borders. 

Today’s cyberspace facilitates underground economies that violate trust and trade in illicit information. 

Cyberspace enables misuse as easily as it enables legitimate economic growth. Sharing and cooperation 

across borders by researchers, governments, and industry are necessary to respond to the rise of global 

malware pandemics and the common threats they pose. Because the scope of cyberspace is global, 

we plan to promote this strategic plan at targeted international forums and use existing governmentto-government science and technology mechanisms to begin influencing the focus of international 

researchers. For example, the INCO-TRUST workshops that are co-organized by the National Science 

Foundation, the European Commission, and academic institutions represent an international forum at 

which to engage in discussions of this plan’s research themes. 

3.4 Accelerating Transition to Practice

An explicit, coordinated process that transitions the fruits of research into practice is essential if Federal 

cybersecurity R&D investments are to have significant, long-lasting impact. Each research program 

should have a transition plan that maps the appropriate paths to take a research product into commercialization. Experience shows that the transition plans that a research program develops and executes 

early in the program’s life cycle are the most effective in achieving successful transfer from research to 

application and use. Transition plans are subject to change and require periodic review and adjustment. 

Moreover, different technologies are better suited to different technology transition paths. In many 

instances, the choice of a transition path may ultimately determine the success or failure of the research 

product in becoming a useful product.

An effective transition plan identifies coordination activities that help manage the transfer of the 

research component from point to point. Currently, a chasm exists between the research community, 

which focuses on exercising research components in demonstration environments, and the operations 

community, which acquires system prototypes containing research components and implements 

them in operational environments. Bridging that chasm, commonly referred to as the “valley of death,” 

requires cooperative efforts and investments by both the R&D and operations communities, and may 

involve significant risk-taking on the part of the private sector as it shepherds research results through 

the commercialization process.

There are a number of transition paths for research funded by the Federal government. These transition 

paths are affected by the nature of the technology, the intended end-user, participants in the research 
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program, and other external circumstances. Success in research product transition often reflects the 

dedication of a program manager who works through opportunistic channels of demonstration, partnering, and sometimes good fortune. The most effective approach, however, is to energize a proactive 

technology champion with the latitude and resources to pursue potential avenues for utilizing the 

research product. In support of a more systematic and coordinated approach to transition activities, 

plans can identify resources to reward those who proactively coordinate activities, take risks, and actively 

engage in the work that transitions a research result successfully into practice.

As part of the Accelerating Transition to Practice activities, the Federal cybersecurity research community 

plans to participate in the following activities related to technology discovery; test and evaluation; and 

transition, adoption, and commercialization.

Technology Discovery

NITRD agencies plan to continue existing cross-agency activities and initiate new activities to discover 

those technologies that are ready for transition. Following are examples of currently planned activities:

• Information Technology Security Entrepreneurs’ Forum (ITSEF)

• Principal Investigator (PI) Meetings

• National Labs Technology Expo

• Defense Venture Catalyst Initiative (DeVenCI)

Test and Evaluation

Test and Evaluation (T&E) is an important stage in the successful transition of an innovation from research 

to deployment and use. T&E requires third-party or partner involvement that focuses experimental 

deployment efforts on early-stage testing and integration in near-real environments. In this sense, T&E 

can also be considered an important phase of transition and adoption. NITRD agencies plan to leverage 

available operational and next-generation networked environments to support experimental deployment, test, and evaluation in realistic settings in both public- and private-sector environments. 

Transition, Adoption, and Commercialization

NITRD agencies plan to continue some existing cross-agency activities and initiate other new activities to 

develop partnerships for those technologies that are ready for transition, adoption, and commercialization. Following are examples of currently planned activities: 

• System Integrator Forum (SIF): An open forum for venture capitalists, system integrators, and 

government managers to review mature R&D products that are being commercialized

• Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Conferences: An open forum to showcase cybersecurity SBIR-related research, technology, and products and provide networking opportunities 

for government customers, Phase II SBIR contractors, and prime contractors

In order to achieve the necessary deployment of new innovation, technology transition must be a 

key consideration for all R&D investments. R&D processes must allocate and spend program funds on 
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technology transition activities in order to transform the “innovation landscape.” R&D programs should 

plan for later-stage activities that can bridge the transition chasm. In addition, government-funded R&D 

programs should consider how to best reward government program managers and principal investigators for making measurable progress in this area.

4. Executing the Federal 

Cybersecurity Research Program

As described in Section 3, the strategy defining the Federal Cybersecurity Research Program is characterized by four primary thrusts: Inducing Change—eliminating known cybersecurity deficiencies, 

Developing Scientific Foundations—minimizing future cybersecurity problems, Maximizing Research 

Impact—catalyzing coordination, collaboration, and integration of research activities for maximum 

effectiveness, and Accelerating Transition to Practice—expediting improvements in cyberspace from 

research findings.

The execution of the Federal Cybersecurity Research Program is vested in several existing government 

entities with responsibilities for research policies and budgets, coordination, and execution.

4.1 Research Policies

Across the Federal research enterprise, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) 

is responsible for leading interagency efforts to develop and implement sound science and technology 

policies. The mission of OSTP is threefold; first, to provide the President and his senior staff with accurate, 

relevant, and timely scientific and technical advice on all matters of consequence; second, to ensure 

that the policies of the Executive Branch are informed by sound science; and third, to ensure that the 

scientific and technical work of the Executive Branch is properly coordinated so as to provide the greatest 

benefit to society (see: http://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp).

In the context of the Federal Cybersecurity Research Program, OSTP provides leadership in assuring that 

strategic research objectives advance national and Presidential priorities and important cybersecurity 

initiatives are given appropriate visibility.

4.2 Research Coordination

Since its inception in 1991, the Federal Networking and Information Technology Research and 

Development (NITRD) Program has become the focal point for coordinating interagency research 

activities in a number of networking and IT domains. Today, the NITRD Program represents a model 

collaborative enterprise of many Federal agencies in networking, computing, software, cybersecurity, 

and related information technologies. The NITRD Program is represented through its subcommittee in 

the National Science and Technology Council. 

The NITRD agencies work together in eight major research areas—called Program Component Areas 

(PCAs). In each PCA, agency program managers participate in an Interagency Working Group (IWG) or 
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Coordinating Group (CG) that coordinates multiagency R&D efforts; budget and program planning; 

conferences, workshops, and seminars; technical reports and white papers; and preparation of the 

annual Supplement to the President’s Budget for the NITRD Program. Cybersecurity research efforts 

are coordinated among the agencies in the Cyber Security and Information Assurance IWG. In tandem, 

the Special Cyber Operations Research and Engineering (SCORE) IWG coordinates research activities 

related to national security systems. The interagency coordination efforts by both the SCORE IWG and 

CSIA IWG are augmented and guided by the NITRD Senior Steering Group (SSG) for Cybersecurity 

R&D. The Cybersecurity SSG comprises senior agency representatives who have program and budget 

responsibilities as well as have the authority to establish priorities for their respective organizations. 

See Figure 1 below.

Figure 1: NITRD Structure for Cybersecurity R&D Coordination

4.3 Research Execution

The coordinated R&D activities are carried out by a group of agencies with varying missions but 

complementary roles. The primary execution agencies are (in alphabetical order): DARPA, DHS S&T, 

DoE, IARPA, NIST, NSA, NSF, and OSD and DoD Service research organizations. Among these agencies, 

the full spectrum of R&D approaches is represented, for example, academic research supported by NSF, 

applied research supported by DHS, and disruptive technology development by DARPA. Accordingly, 

each agency structures the contributing R&D activities based on its focus and mission. Highlights of 

agency activities and research budgets are available from NITRD Supplements to the President’s Budget.
TRUSTWORTHY CYBERSPACE: STRATEGIC PLAN FOR THE FEDERAL

CYBERSECURITY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

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Acknowledgments

This report was developed by the Cyber Security and Information Assurance Research and Development 

Senior Steering Group (CSIA R&D SSG) and Cyber Security and Information Assurance Interagency 

Working Group (CSIA IWG). Additional representatives from agencies with cybersecurity R&D programs 

participated in reviewing the Plan and made technical and editorial contributions to this document. The 

CSIA R&D SSG and CSIA IWG report to the Subcommittee on Networking and Information Technology 

Research and Development (NITRD) of the Committee on Technology of the National Science and 

Technology Council. The report is published by the National Coordination Office for the NITRD Program. 

For more information, visit http://www.nitrd.gov/.

The contributions of Susan Alexander (National Security Agency), Chris Greer (National Institute of 

Standards and Technology), and Jeannette Wing (Carnegie Mellon University, on appointment at the 

National Science Foundation during 2007-2010) are gratefully acknowledged.

References

Background information and details of the research themes can be found at: 

http://cybersecurity.nitrd.gov.

Acronyms

BAA Broad Agency Announcement

CRASH Clean-Slate Design of Resilient, Adaptive, Secure Hosts

CSIA Cyber Security and Information Assurance

DARPA Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

DeVenCI DoD Venture Catalyst Initiative

DIS Designed-in Security

DHS S&T Department of Homeland Security, Directorate for Science and Technology

DoD Department of Defense

DoE Department of Energy

FSSCC Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council

HHS Department of Health and Human Services

IARPA Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency

ITSEF Information Technology Security Entrepreneurs’ Forum

IWG Interagency Working Group

MT Moving Target

NCO National Coordination Office

NICE National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education

NITRD Networking and Information Technology Research and Development
Acronyms

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NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology

NSA National Security Agency

NSF National Science Foundation

NSTC National Science and Technology Council

NSTIC National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace

OMB Office of Management and Budget

OSD Office of the Secretary of Defense

OSTP Office of Science and Technology Policy

PCA Program Component Area

PI Principal Investigator

R&D Research and Development

SBIR Small Business Innovative Research

SCORE Special Cyber Operations Research and Engineering

SHARP Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects

SIF System Integrator Forum

SSG Senior Steering Group

T&E Test and Evaluation

TTS Tailored Trustworthy Space