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86–992PS 2003

CYBER SECURITY

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MAY 14, 2003

Serial No. 108–17

Printed for the use of the Committee on Science

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/science

(II)

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE

HON. SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York, Chairman

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas

CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania

DANA ROHRABACHER, California

JOE BARTON, Texas

KEN CALVERT, California

NICK SMITH, Michigan

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

GEORGE R. NETHERCUTT, JR.,

Washington

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois

MELISSA A. HART, Pennsylvania

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia

ROB BISHOP, Utah

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas

JO BONNER, Alabama

TOM FEENEY, Florida

VACANCY

RALPH M. HALL, Texas

BART GORDON, Tennessee

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas

LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California

NICK LAMPSON, Texas

JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut

MARK UDALL, Colorado

DAVID WU, Oregon

MICHAEL M. HONDA, California

CHRIS BELL, Texas

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina

LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas

ZOE LOFGREN, California

BRAD SHERMAN, California

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington

DENNIS MOORE, Kansas

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York

JIM MATHESON, Utah

DENNIS A. CARDOZA, California

VACANCY

(III)

C O N T E N T S

May 14, 2003

Page

Witness List ............................................................................................................. 2

Hearing Charter ...................................................................................................... 3

Opening Statements

Statement by Representative Sherwood L. Boehlert, Chairman, Committee

on Science, U.S. House of Representatives ........................................................ 9

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 9

Statement by Representative Ralph M. Hall, Minority Ranking Member,

Committee on Science, U.S. House of Representatives ..................................... 10

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 10

Prepared Statement by Representative Nick Smith, Chairman, Subcommittee

on Research, Committee on Science, U.S. House of Representatives .............. 11

Prepared Statement by Representative Jerry F. Costello, Member, Committee

on Science, U.S. House of Representatives ........................................................ 12

Prepared Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Member, Committee on Science, U.S. House of Representatives ............................................ 12

Prepared Statement by Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, Member, Committee on Science, U.S. House of Representatives ............................................ 13

Witnesses:

Dr. Charles E. McQueary, Under Secretary for Science and Technology, Department of Homeland Security

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 15

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 18

Biography .......................................................................................................... 21

Dr. Rita R. Colwell, Director, National Science Foundation

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 21

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 23

Biography .......................................................................................................... 27

Dr. Arden L. Bement, Jr., Director, National Institute of Standards and

Technology, Technology Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 27

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 29

Biography .......................................................................................................... 34

Dr. Anthony J. Tether, Director, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 35

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 38

Biography .......................................................................................................... 41

Discussion ................................................................................................................. 42

Appendix 1: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

Dr. Charles E. McQueary, Under Secretary for Science and Technology, Department of Homeland Security .......................................................................... 72

Dr. Rita R. Colwell, Director, National Science Foundation ................................ 76

Dr. Arden L. Bement, Jr., Director, National Institute of Standards and

Technology, Technology Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce ....... 81

Page

IV

Appendix 2: Additional Material for the Record

Letter from the Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board to The

Honorable Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr., Director, Office of Management and

Budget, dated April 8, 2003 ................................................................................ 86

Current Activities of the National Institute of Standards and Technology

in Cyber Security and Related Programs ........................................................... 89

Public Law 107–305—Nov. 27, 2002 ...................................................................... 97

(1)

CYBER SECURITY RESEARCH AND

DEVELOPMENT

WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 2003

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE,

Washington, DC.

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a.m., in Room 2318

of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Sherwood L. Boehlert

(Chairman of the Committee) presiding.

2

3

HEARING CHARTER

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Cyber Security

Research and Development

WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 2003

10:00 A.M.–12:00 P.M. 2318 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING

1. Purpose

On Wednesday, May 14, 2003, the House Science Committee will hold a hearing

to examine federal cyber security research and development (R&D) activities and

implementation of last year’s Cyber Security Research and Development Act (P.L.

107–305).

2. Witnesses

Dr. Charles E. McQueary is the Under Secretary for Science and Technology at

the Department of Homeland Security. Prior to joining the Department, Dr.

McQueary served as President of General Dynamics Advanced Technology systems,

and as President and Vice President of business units for AT&T, Lucent Technologies, and as a Director for AT&T Bell Laboratories.

Dr. Rita R. Colwell is the Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF). Before joining the Foundation, Dr. Colwell served as President of the University of

Maryland Biotechnology Institute and Professor of Microbiology at the University

Maryland. She was also a member of the National Science Board from 1984 to 1990.

Dr. Arden L. Bement, Jr. is the Director of the National Institute of Standards

and Technology (NIST). Prior to his appointment as NIST director, Dr. Bement was

professor and head at the School of Nuclear Engineering at Purdue University. Before Purdue, he served in a variety of positions, including Vice President of Technical Resources and of Science and Technology for TRW Inc. and Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. Dr. Bement has also served as a

member of the National Science Board and as chair of the NIST Visiting Committee

on Advanced Technology.

Dr. Anthony J. Tether is the Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects

Agency (DARPA). Until his appointment as Director of DARPA, Dr. Tether held the

position of Chief Executive Officer and President of The Sequoia Group. He has also

been Chief Executive Officer for Dynamics Technology Inc. and Vice President of

Science Applications International Corporation’s (SAIC) Advanced Technology Sector. Dr. Tether has served on Army and Defense Science Boards.

3. Overarching Questions

The hearing will address the following overarching questions:

1. What is the current status of federally-supported cyber security research and

development programs in the United States? What level and types of effort

are needed to meet existing and emerging cyber terrorism threats?

2. How are cyber security research and development activities coordinated

among federal agencies? How are gaps in the research portfolio identified

and filled? How will the new Department of Homeland Security affect the

coordination process? How will it change the overall portfolio of programs?

3. What efforts are being made to develop a strong cyber security workforce and

to establish and expand university educational and research programs relevant to cyber security?

4. How do the federal agencies work with industry on cyber security research

and development efforts?

4. Brief Overview

• Information technology systems underpin key industries such as telecommunications and financial services, and also play a vital role in the

4

1 A computer virus is a program or piece of code that is loaded onto your computer without

your knowledge and runs against your wishes. Viruses can also replicate themselves. They are

often capable of attaching themselves to other files or e-mail and transmitting themselves across

networks and bypassing security systems. Some of the destructive things that viruses can do

include deleting or corrupting files and using all the available memory on a system (thereby

bringing the system to a halt). A worm is a special type of virus that can replicate itself and

use memory, but cannot attach itself to other programs. 2 In 2002, 82,094 incidents were reported to the CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University, up 275% from 2000. Also in 2002, the center published 41 security alerts and

handled over 200,000 mail messages and over 800 hotline calls.

smooth functioning of critical infrastructures and services, such as transportation systems, the electric power grid, and emergency response capabilities.

As the number of ways in which our economy depends on network and computer systems has grown, so has the number of attacks on these information

technology systems. For example, the number of incidents reported to the

computer security incident response center at Carnegie Mellon University increased 275% from 2000 to 2002, and over 42,000 incidents have already been

reported in 2003.

• Active research and development programs to produce new cyber security

tools and techniques are necessary to enable us to maintain the performance

of important networks and systems and improve our ability to defend against

cyber and physical terrorism. Currently, cyber security research and development is supported and performed at a variety of federal agencies, including

the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institute of Standards

and Technology (NIST), and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

(DARPA). Within the new Department of Homeland Security, the Science and

Technology Directorate will have responsibility for managing research and development programs relevant to cyber security.

• In November of 2002, the President signed the Cyber Security Research and

Development Act (P.L. 107–305), which authorized appropriations for the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Standards and Technology to strengthen their programs in computer and network security (CNS)

research and development and to support CNS research fellowships and

training programs. However, FY 2003 appropriations and FY 2004 proposed

funding are significantly below the authorized levels.

• New hardware and software technologies are rapidly adopted in many industries and new ways of interfering with computer systems develop just as fast.

Multiple federal agencies will need to coordinate their efforts to ensure that

new understanding of information and network security is generated and that

this knowledge is transitioned into useful cyber security products. Institutions

of higher education will have develop and expand degree programs to ensure

that an adequate workforce exists to put the new tools and techniques into

practice. The private sector has a critical role to play, as it will contain the

developers and suppliers as well as the major purchasers of new cyber security technologies and services.

5. Background

Cyber Threats to Critical Infrastructures

Information technology systems underpin key industries such as telecommunications and financial services, and also play a vital role in the smooth functioning

of critical infrastructures and services, such as transportation systems, the electric

power grid, and emergency response capabilities. Remote operation of chemical

plant functions and management of the aircraft control system also depend on software and computer networks. Thus vulnerabilities in various components of networks and computers could be exploited to disrupt and damage these critical systems. For example, distributed denial of service attacks could slow Internet traffic

and bring down important web sites. Cyber attacks on supervisory control and data

acquisition (SCADA) systems could shut down power plants or disrupt processes at

chemical manufacturing facilities. Interference with emergency responder communications technology could amplify the effects of a physical terrorist attack.

The vulnerability of the Nation’s information technology infrastructure has been

demonstrated many times in the past several years. ‘‘Hackers’’ are arrested for

breaking into computer systems to steal and corrupt data, or just to disrupt government or industry services. Major ‘‘infections’’ of computer viruses and worms1 make

the news, and smaller ‘‘outbreaks’’ occur daily.2 While the impact on physical systems has been minimal to date, the economic impact of successful attacks can be

significant. For example, in 2001, the Code Red and Nimda worms spread through

5

3While ‘‘CERT’’ originally stood for ‘‘Computer Emergency Response Team,’’ today the center’s

name is officially just ‘‘CERT.’’

e-mail, corporate networks, and Web browsers. Together, they are estimated to have

produced $3 billion in costs worldwide due to lost productivity and expenses related

to testing, cleaning, and deploying patches to computer systems. In January of 2003,

the Slammer (or Sapphire) Worm took advantage of vulnerabilities in server software to generate a damaging level of network traffic, so Internet users experienced

difficulty accessing web sites and sending e-mail. In addition, Bank of America automated teller machines were taken off line, Continental Airlines reservation computer systems experienced widespread problems, and an emergency call center in

Seattle was essentially blacked out. Thus developing new defenses is critical to ensure that small weaknesses are not exploited to produce major economic consequences.

The above examples show how a terrorist could target computer systems or networks and create a great deal of disruption and damage. However, terrorists could

also use information technology systems to amplify the effects of a physical attack

on people or property. For example, a terrorist planning to release a chemical or

biological agent could first send an e-mail that appears to be from a trustworthy

source (a police department or a news agency) to order or urge evacuation of buildings in order to increase the number of people out in the streets when he spreads

his toxin. Cyber attacks could also be used to interfere with first responder communication and coordination systems, hindering the ability to respond to a crisis. Thus

protection of information systems is a critical part of homeland defense.

The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace was released by the Administration

in February 2003. It includes a number of recommendations to improve the Nation’s

cyber security now, both in federal systems and in privately-owned infrastructures.

Currently the Federal Government’s effort to deploy cyber security tools and techniques (the ‘‘operational’’ cyber security programs) are scattered over many agencies.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology provides guidance and tools to

federal agencies and to private industry that enable them to evaluate their cyber

security needs and the performance of their security systems. The National Security

Agency has significant programs in encryption. The Department of Homeland Security will have significant responsibilities in this area, both in new programs in its

Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection directorate, and in programs

that are being transferred in, like the Federal Computer Incident Response Center

(FedCIRC), which provides civilian agencies and departments with offerings in computer security incident prevention, reporting, analysis, and recovery. There are also

private organizations, such as the federally-funded CERT Coordination Center at

Carnegie Mellon University,3 whose activities include providing technical advice

about and coordinating responses to security incidents, publishing security alerts,

and tracking information about vulnerabilities and intruder activities.

The Need for Cyber Security Research and Development Programs

In addition to discussing ways to reduce cyber infrastructure vulnerabilities now,

The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace also emphasizes the importance of developing and carrying out a cyber security research and development agenda for the

Federal Government.

Cyber security research and development programs focus on ways to prevent attacks, to detect them as they are occurring, to respond to them effectively, to mitigate the severity of their effects, to recover as quickly as possible from them, and

to find the people responsible. In addition to enabling us to avoid damage from

cyber terrorism, a greater understanding of the weaknesses in computer systems

and networks and how to protect them will allow computer operators to deflect the

actions of cyber criminals—out to steal credit card numbers and personal information—and hackers—out to disrupt and destroy for the fun of it.

In March 2003, the National Academy of Science released Information Technology

for Counterterrorism: Immediate Actions and Future Possibilities. This report outlines an extensive research agenda for information technology research in many

areas. In the information and network security field, the areas of emphasis are: authentication (determining that a system’s users are those with permission to use it),

detection (being aware that an attack, or attempted attack, is occurring), containment (mitigating the effects of an attack), and recovery (getting the system back up

and functioning after an attack). The report also lists a number of research areas

in which advances will impact all facets of the effort to improve cyber security.

These areas include reducing the ‘‘bugginess’’ of software, managing the trade-offs

between security and functionality more successfully, and gathering information on

new and emerging techniques for cyber attacks.

6

4For example, NSF cyber security research programs received $28 million in FY 2003 (as com- pared to $47 million authorized in this area), and the FY 2004 proposal is for $35 million (authorization was $64 million). 5 A firewall is a system designed to prevent unauthorized access to or from a private network.

Firewalls are frequently used to prevent unauthorized people from accessing private networks

(like those used at companies, universities, and government agencies) over the Internet. All messages (like e-mail) entering or leaving the private network pass through the firewall, which examines each message and blocks those that do not meet the specified security criteria.

Existing Federal Cyber Security Research and Development Programs

The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institute of Standards

and Technology (NIST) currently have active cyber security-related programs. To

support and expand these programs, the Cyber Security Research and Development

Act was signed in November 2002. Under this Act, NSF was authorized to expand

its computer and network security grants programs and establish new research centers in this area and to provide grants to institutes of higher education and provide

fellowships to students to increase the number of people receiving degrees in this

area. NIST was authorized to create new program grants for partnerships between

academia and industry, new post-doctoral fellowships, and a new program to encourage senior researchers in other fields to work on computer security. The Act authorizes $903 million over five years for these new programs, to ensure that the U.S.

is better prepared to prevent and combat terrorist attacks on private and government computers. Specifically, for FY 2004, $110.25 million was authorized for NSF,

and $47.29 million for NIST, to enable them to carry out the above programs. However, actual appropriations in FY 2003 and the presidential proposals for FY 2004

both fall far short of the authorized numbers.4 As a result, NIST will be entirely

unable to establish the grants program for academic-industrial research partnerships, and NSF’s grants programs will be significantly smaller than those envisioned in the Act.

The Department of Homeland Security is currently setting up its organizational

structure and defining its programmatic priorities for FY 2003 and FY 2004. In the

department, responsibility for managing research and development efforts relevant

to cyber security rests in the Science and Technology directorate, while operational

responsibilities for implementing cyber security fall in the Information Analysis and

Infrastructure Protection directorate. Public statements have been made indicating

that there will be no ‘‘box’’ in the organization with specific responsibility for cyber

security in either the operational or research arenas. Operationally, programs to secure the cyber infrastructure will be an element of the broader critical infrastructure protection efforts. In the Science and Technology directorate, cyber security research and development programs will be part of the Threat and Vulnerability,

Testing and Assessment program, and will focus on meeting critical needs of other

DHS units, such as the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection directorate and the U.S. Secret Service. Less than 1 percent of the Science and Technology directorate’s $803 million budget will be directed toward cyber security research and development. The absence of a clear advocate for cyber security at the

Department is of particular concern in light of the Administration’s decision in February 2003 to eliminate the President’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Board.

The Board, which was established after the attacks of September 11, 2001, authored

The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace and the Board’s director, Richard

Clarke, did much to raise the level of awareness about the vulnerabilities of the Nation’s cyber infrastructure and the need for improved cyber security.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has played a critical

role in information technology research, including cyber security programs. The first

firewall,5 significant advances in intrusion detection systems, and important Internet security protocols were all developed through DARPA programs. In the late

1990’s, the agency made a large investment in ‘‘defensive’’ information warfare,

which included unclassified research on computer systems’ security and survivability. However, DARPA does not have a history of sustained, stable support of

cyber security research and development programs, and, since 2000, the size of this

program has declined (from approximately $90 million in 2000 to $30 million in

2003). Part of this decline is due to the fact that DARPA’s focus has shifted to classified research on ‘‘offensive’’ information warfare. Classified research on information security is also done by the National Security Agency (NSA). NSA’s funding for

information assurance work is estimated to be roughly $750 million, with roughly

half spent on research, development, testing, and evaluation; a significant part of

this effort focuses on cryptography. While defense-related work on cyber security is

necessary, it is important to recognize that the impact such classified work has on

the overall national cyber security is often limited because the research is mainly

7

6 According to NSF, only approximately seven Ph.D.s in cyber security are awarded each year.

7The Critical Infrastructure Protection and Information Assurance Fellows (CIPIAF) Program

provided funds to cyber security principal investigators to pay post-doctoral fellows coming from

non-cyber security backgrounds.

performed at government facilities and contractors, and the results are seldom

shared publicly or transferred to the commercial sector.

Overall, it is currently very difficult to determine the total spending on cyber security research and development programs across the Federal Government. Information is currently collected and reported on a variety of relevant areas (such as networking and information technology research and development), but the programs

specifically devoted to cyber security research and development have not been pulled

out. OSTP has indicated that agencies will be asked to quantify cyber security research and development funding within their FY 2005 request.

Another factor to be considered in assessing the quality of cyber security operations and cyber security research in the United States is the critical role of the

private sector in both areas. As new results emerge from cyber security research

and development activities, information technology companies will have to turn new

knowledge into new technologies and services, and industries from banking to electric power will have to choose to take advantage of these new capabilities. Therefore, federal cyber security research and development programs will have to consider

ways to encourage technology transfer and facilitate technology uptake.

Workforce Issues

Research and development goals and useful new cyber security tools are of no use

if there are not people to carry out the research programs and put the new techniques into practice.6 The Cyber Security Research and Development Act, The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, and the National Academy of Sciences’ report

all emphasize the importance of expanding the relevant workforce. Recommended

actions range from developing undergraduate and masters programs to train operational cyber security personnel to fellowships for post-doctoral and senior scientists

and engineers to increase participation in information security research programs.

Current programs in this area are quite small. The National Science Foundation

has a Cyber Security Scholarship for Service program ($16 million requested for FY

2004). This program provides scholarships to students in the fields of information

assurance and computer security in return for a commitment following graduation

to work for a federal agency. The Department of Defense started a program7 in 2000

to provide re-training fellowships for researchers and recent Ph.D.s looking to transfer into the cyber security field, but this program is ending in 2003. The Cyber Security Research and Development Act authorizes NIST to establish a senior research

fellowship program that will be open to established researchers who seek to change

fields into cyber security research, but no funds were requested for that program

in FY 2004.

6. Current Issues

The most pressing issue in cyber security research and development is the underfunding of relevant programs. The NSF and NIST programs are well under the authorized levels. DARPA is ramping down relevant unclassified programs. The proposed effort in DHS is small. Yet the cyber infrastructure of the United States penetrates all critical infrastructures and forms a fundamental base of the Nation’s

physical security and economic and social stability. Significant investment in research and development in computer and network security will be needed to maintain homeland security. Delaying this investment will not only increase current and

future vulnerabilities, but will also raise future cyber security expenses, from the

costs associated with damage done by cyber attacks to the expenses of retrofitting

security systems onto existing hardware and software.

Each federal agency has its own mission and thus each has its own special role

to play in cyber security research and development. Multi-agency collaboration and

a coherent cross-agency strategy are needed to maximize the impact of federal investment and to ensure that gaps do not develop in the effort to develop the tools

needed to build a multi-layer defense of the cyber infrastructure. In addition, since

many information technology products and their implementations in critical infrastructures are developed and owned by the private sector, close communication with

industry will be required. Finally, growth is needed in educational programs to expand research and development programs and to train the workforce required to implement security techniques in critical computer and network systems.

7. Witness Questions

The witnesses were asked to address the following questions in their testimony:

8

Questions for Dr. Charles McQueary

• How will the cyber security research and development agenda at the Department of Homeland Security be defined? Will the department’s science and

technology directorate develop in-house cyber security expertise and programs? How will it coordinate with the department’s operational cyber security programs?

• What mechanisms will the Department of Homeland Security use to coordinate its cyber security research and development activities with other federal

agencies, such as NSF, NIST, and DARPA, with active programs in this area?

• How will the department interact with cyber security research and development efforts underway in industry? How will it interact with university-based

cyber security programs?

Questions for Dr. Rita Colwell

• What actions has the National Science Foundation (NSF) taken in response

to the Cyber Security Research and Development Act? In particular, how is

NSF fulfilling its role as the lead agency for cyber security research and development as specified in Section 7 of the Act?

• What are NSF’s priorities in cyber security research and development? How

are these priorities determined?

• How does NSF coordinate its cyber security research and development activities with other federal agencies?

• To what extent is NSF identifying and working to fill gaps in the federal

cyber security research and development portfolio?

Questions for Dr. Arden Bement

• What actions has NIST taken in response to the Cyber Security Research and

Development Act?

• How does NIST coordinate its cyber security research and development activities with other federal agencies? How does NIST interact with industry on

cyber security research and development activities?

• What are NIST’s priorities in cyber security research and development? How

are these priorities determined?

Questions for Dr. Anthony Tether

• How have DARPA’s information assurance research and development programs evolved over the past few years? Is there an increased emphasis on

military or offensive applications? How is the balance between classified and

unclassified efforts changing?

• How does DARPA coordinate its cyber security research and development activities with other federal agencies?

• How is information about results or technologies that are applicable to the

protection of commercial networks and privately-owned infrastructures provided to relevant research and development communities in industry and academia?

• What are DARPA’s priorities in cyber security research and development?

How are these priorities determined?

Appendix I

Links to referenced documents on cyber security research and development:

Public Law 107–305: The Cyber Security Research and Development Act (November

2002):

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/

getdoc.cgi?dbname=107¥cong¥public¥laws&docid=f:publ305.107.pdf

The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace (February 2003)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/pcipb/

Information Technology for Counterterrorism: Immediate Actions and Future Possibilities, National Academy of Sciences (March 2003):

http://bob.nap.edu/html/IT¥counterterror/

9

Chairman BOEHLERT. The hearing will come to order. It is a

pleasure to welcome everyone here this morning for a hearing on

a subject that has consumed the Committee over the past couple

of years: cyber security research and development. We have been

focused on this topic for good reason. The Nation, quite simply, has

been under-investigating—investing woefully in cyber security

R&D and as a result, we lack both the experts and the expertise

we ought to have in a world that relies so heavily on computers

and networks for the necessities of everyday life.

Last year, led by this committee, Congress passed, and the President signed into law, two landmark bills to try to remedy this problem: the Cyber Security Research and Development Act and the

Homeland Security Act. Both established new programs and authorized new funds for cyber security R&D.

Today is our first chance to see what has happened as a result.

At first blush, the answer appears to be: not nearly enough. Agencies have neither sought nor set aside adequate funding to implement the Cyber Security R&D Act. We hear complaints from

throughout the research community that the Department of Homeland Security is not focusing sufficiently on the problem and

DARPA is actually reducing its investment in this area.

I am sure our witnesses today will describe positive actions that

have been taken, and there are some, but it is impossible not to

conclude that far more needs to be done. I assure you that this

committee, we will continue pressing for more action on cyber security R&D. This hearing is only the beginning. We need to work together now to prevent devastating attacks in the future.

I look forward to hearing from all of our witnesses, and we are

going to do just that. And we have a very distinguished panel, and

I think all of my colleagues should be very impressed with the

panel.

With that, let me introduce the distinguished Ranking Member

from Texas, not Oklahoma, Texas, Mr. Hall.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Boehlert follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN SHERWOOD BOEHLERT

It’s a pleasure to welcome everyone here this morning for a hearing on a subject

that has consumed the Committee over the past couple of years cyber security R&D.

We’ve been focused on this topic for good reason. The Nation quite simply has

been under-investing woefully in cyber security R&D, and as a result we lack both

the experts and the expertise we ought to have in a world that relies so heavily on

computers and networks for the necessities of everyday life.

Last year, led by this Committee, Congress passed, and the President signed into

law, two landmark bills to try to remedy this problem. The ‘‘Cyber Security Research and Development Act’’ and the ‘‘Homeland Security Act’’ both established

new programs and authorized new funds for cyber security R&D. Today is our first

chance to see what’s happened as a result.

At first blush, the answer appears to be ‘‘not nearly enough.’’ Agencies have neither sought nor set aside adequate funding to implement the Cyber Security R&D

Act. We hear complaints from throughout the research community that the Department of Homeland Security is not focusing sufficiently on the problem. And DARPA

is actually reducing its investment in this area.

I’m sure our witnesses today will describe positive actions that have been taken

and there are some—but still one can only conclude that far more needs to be done.

I assure you that this committee will continue pressing for more action on cyber security R&D. This hearing is only the beginning.

We need to work together now to prevent devastating attacks in the future. I look

forward to working with all our witnesses to do just that.

Mr. Hall.

10

Mr. HALL. You know, all my exes are in Oklahoma this morning.

I want to join Chairman Boehlert in welcoming everyone to this

morning’s hearing, because first, you are selected on the basis of

your knowledge and your service. And I know it takes time to get

ready. It takes time to come here. It takes time to testify. And we

appreciate the gift that you give to this committee, and through us,

to the rest of the Congress.

Not a day—as Chairman Boehlert has very aptly set out, not a

day goes by without some mention of information technology in the

news and as this information technology has become a part of almost every aspect of our economy and of our society. As this has

happened, we have become familiar with the negative aspects of

the information revolution: cyber crime. The threats we fear range

all the way from nuisance hackers, theft and fraud, to the breakdown of the information infrastructure and everything that depends on it.

With the events of the last few years, the security of the information infrastructure has received even more public attention. In February, the President released The National Strategy to Secure

Cyberspace. The President’s strategy emphasizes the need for more

research efforts, and what I hope to learn today is the context for

these research efforts and the amount of coordination that occurs

between agencies and with the private sector.

In addressing any public policy question, the first thing to ask

is: ‘‘What problems need to be solved?’’ As was pointed out in a recent article in Issues in Science and Technology, ‘‘Cyber Security:

Who’s Watching the Store?’’, we still lack a solid assessment of this

threat. Despite the attention that cyber attacks receive in the

media, there is little real data for estimating the size of the cyber

security threat. And although I like a good story as much as anyone, the plural of anecdote is not data. Without the research to define the problem, I think it is difficult to determine the amount of

money and the effort required to develop a solution to it.

So I hope today’s witnesses can tell us what they are doing to

define the scope and size of the problem with real data. We can’t

afford to have agencies going off on their own to develop a cyber

security program and then hope the sum will be greater than the

parts. Because their information infrastructure is largely in the

hands of the private sector, any effective research agenda must be

developed with input from the industry. A strategy that relies on

simply training personnel and then hoping they find jobs is not sufficient. Research efforts need to be focused on the real problems,

so I hope our witnesses will tell us about the interactions with industry and developing research agendas.

And I want to thank the witnesses for appearing before the Committee, and I look forward to their input on this issue. And I yield

back my time.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hall follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE RALPH M. HALL

I want to join Chairman Boehlert in welcoming everyone to this morning’s hearing.

Not a day goes by without some mention of information technology in the news.

As information technologies have become a part of every aspect of our economy and

society, we have become familiar with the negative aspects of the information revoVerDate 11-MAY-2000 22:12 Oct 04, 2003 Jkt 086992 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 C:\WORKD\FULL03\051403\86992 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
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lution—cyber crime. The threats we fear range from nuisance hackers, theft and

fraud, to the breakdown of the information infrastructure and everything that depends upon it.

With events of the few years, the security of the information infrastructure has

received even more public attention. In February, the President released The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace. The President’s strategy emphasizes the need

for more research efforts. What I hope to learn today, is the context for these research efforts and the amount of coordination that occurs between agencies and

with the private sector.

In addressing any public policy question, the first thing to ask is ‘‘What problem

needs to be solved?’’ As was pointed out in a recent article in Issues in Science and

Technology, ‘‘Cyber Security: Who’s watching the Store?’’, we still lack a solid assessment of the threat. Despite the attention that cyber attacks receive in the media

there is little real data for estimating the size of the cyber security threat. And although I like a good story as much as anyone, the plural of anecdote is not data.

Without the research to define the problem, I think it’s difficult to determine the

amount of money and effort required to develop a solution. So I hope today’s witnesses can tell us what they are doing to define the scope and size of the problem

with real data.

I don’t believe we can simply spend our way out of this problem. Therefore, I’m

hoping that our witnesses can tell us how they coordinate the development of their

research programs. We can’t afford to have agencies going off on their own to develop a cyber security program and then hope the sum will be greater than the

parts. Because our information infrastructure is largely in the hands of the private

sector, any effective research agenda must be developed with input from the industry. A strategy that relies on simply training personnel and then hoping they find

jobs is not sufficient. Research efforts need to be focused on the real problems. So,

I hope our witnesses will tell us about their interactions with industry in developing

the research agendas.

I want to thank our witnesses for appearing before the Committee and I look forward to their insight on this issue.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE NICK SMITH

Today we meet to examine federal efforts to address an extremely important—but

often under-appreciated—threat to our country: the potentially devastating attacks

on our nation’s computer networks and infrastructure.

Almost immediately after the September 11th attacks, the Science Committee

held multiple hearings to examine just how vulnerable we were to the threat of

cyber attacks. These hearings revealed that the United States uses more and has

become more dependent on ‘‘cyber’’ than any other country. Technological advancements in computers, software, networks and information technology greatly improved our lives, but they also made our society more vulnerable to disruption.

We also learned that the threat from other risks, such as computer viruses, hacking, and electronic identity theft, present significant hazards to general commerce,

personal privacy, and our overall economic system. Finally, and in large part due

to the interconnectedness of our technological age, we learned that physical security

was permanently linked to cyber security. As a result, we concluded that Congress

needed to address cyber security with the same vigilance with which we were addressing our physical security at home and abroad.

So we responded to these realizations by drafting and passing into law the Cyber

Security Research and Development Act of 2002. This legislation provided a comprehensive, coordinated research framework to address the threats to our computer

systems.

I am interested today to learn not only how the Federal Government is implementing the research coordination provisions of the cyber security bill, but also how

they are working to ensure implementation of the technologies we now have readily

available today. Although I am pleased that the Department of Homeland Security

has requested over $800 million for applied research and development in its Science

and Technology Directorate, it is not clear whether cyber security will receive appropriate attention within the Directorate.

We have a very esteemed panel of agency witnesses with us here today, and I

have many important issues to discuss with them. I look forward to their testimony

and I am confident that Congress, the Administration, the university community,

and the private sector will be able to work together to find solutions to the cyber

security challenges facing America.

12

[The prepared statement of Mr. Costello follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE JERRY F. COSTELLO

Good morning. I want to thank the witnesses for appearing before our committee

to examine the federal cyber security research and development activities and implementation of the Cyber Security Research and Development Act (P.L. 107–305).

The Cyber Security Research and Development Act authorized $903 million over

five years for new federal programs to ensure that the U.S. is better prepared to

prevent and combat terrorist attacks on private and government computers. The

legislation was developed following a series of post-September 11th Science Committee hearings on the emerging cyber-terrorist threat and the lack of a coordinated

U.S. response. Despite this new legislative and programmatic initiative, our computer and communications networks, upon which the country’s economic and critical

infrastructures for finance, transportation, energy and water distribution, and

health and emergency services depend, are still among the Nation’s vulnerabilities.

In addition, funding for FY 2003 and proposed funding for FY 2004 is significantly

below the authorized levels.

As a result, valid concerns remain that the U.S. is still not appropriately organized and prepared to counter and respond to cyber security. Multiple federal agencies, as well as institutions of higher education and the private sector, have critical

roles to play; yet, no enactment of or planning for the National Strategy has occurred and there is no evidence of coordination among agencies as they developed

their research and development budget requests for FY 2004. The absence of a clear

advocate for cyber security at the Department of Homeland Security, coupled with

the Administration’s decision in February 2003 to eliminate the President’s Critical

Infrastructure Protection Board, is of particular concern. Further, I am interested

to know from our witnesses how the Administration determines where the emphasis

should be in cyber security and how this is reflected in the agency’s budget requests.

I again thank the witnesses for being with us today and providing testimony to

our committee.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON

Thank you, Chairman, for calling this important hearing to examine federal cyber

security research and development (R&D) activities and the Cyber Security Research

and Development Act (P.L. 107–305) and I also want to thank our witnesses for

agreeing to appear today.

Cyber security is an emerging concept that will redefine computer science and engineering in our nation as we know it.

Last February, the Administration released its long-awaited National Strategy to

Secure Cyber Security. However, it seems that cyber security has slipped in importance for the Bush Administration. Rather than target specific industry segments

and require that they secure themselves by recommending tough new laws and regulations, the Administration’s plan recommends that industry and individuals simply take greater care.

Overall, the new DHS’s $37.7 billion budget earmarks only $3 billion for cyber security. So the Infrastructure Protection directorate, one of five directorates in the

DHS, appears in line for less than 10 percent of funds.

To be fair, the DHS is an immense undertaking, the biggest government reorganization effort since the Department of Defense was created after World War II.

Such a reorganization will require time.

Unfortunately, the Administration does not address criticism that its lack of regulations render it toothless. For example, previous, unpublished drafts had included

measures that would have forced Internet service providers to offer firewalls to their

users and would have a required wireless hardware makers to improve security.

It is very important that any plan from the Administration does an effective job

at identifying threats. Regrettably, this plan does not propose to collect reliable data

and perform the analysis necessary to define the threat. Without a reliable threat

assessment, it is almost impossible to tailor an R&D program to meet real needs,

let alone allocate the appropriate amount of funding to develop solutions. Hopefully,

our witnesses today will be able to provide answers to our questions that will shine

light on some of the short comings of the Administration’s proposals.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Lee follows:]

13

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE SHEILA JACKSON LEE

Mr. Chairman,

Thank you for calling this extremely timely and enlightening hearing. I also serve

on the Select Committee on Homeland Security, which is now several months old.

Despite the continuous pressure from Ranking Member Turner and all of the other

Democratic Members, that Committee—charged with providing Congressional oversight to our nation’s domestic efforts to protect the American people—has yet to hold

a single substantive hearing. I am glad that as usual, the Science Committee has

risen to the challenge, to ask tough questions on sensitive issues.

National security is obviously foremost on everyone’s minds these days. As we

work to improve our country’s security, it is important that we take inventory of

all systems that are vital to the functioning of the Nation, and do all we can to protect them. This certainly includes our computer networks systems that can be attacked anonymously and from far away. These networks are the glue that holds our

nation’s infrastructure together. An attack from cyberspace could jeopardize electric

power grids, railways, hospitals and financial services, to name a few.

We are all aware of the growing number of Internet security incidents. These incidents can come in many flavors: annoying attacks through e-mails, involving such

things as computer viruses, denial of service attacks, and defaced web sites; or cyber

crime, such as identity theft. Such events have disrupted business and government

activities, and have sometimes resulted in significant recovery costs.

Our hospitals and power grids, our communications, our transportation systems,

are all critically dependent on computers and information flow and the satellites

above us. A terrorist or other criminal tampering with those systems could devastate entire industries and potentially cost lives. While we have been fortunate so

far in avoiding a catastrophic cyber attack, Richard Clarke, the President’s cyberterrorism czar from last year, I guess I should say ‘‘two czars ago,’’ said that the

government must make cyber security a priority or face the possibility of a ‘‘Digital

Pearl Harbor.’’

This was truly a frightening prospect. It motivated me to get more knowledgeable

and active in the area of cyber security. It motivated this committee, the Chairman

and Ranking Member, to get busy on hearings and legislation. The Cyber Security

Research and Development Act is the product of our work. Now I look forward to

hearing how the Administration and the Agencies are stepping up the challenges

that are before us.

Of course here in the Science Committee, we tend to appreciate good Science—

good data to guide smart policy. I am troubled by the fact that it seems we still

do not have good data as to what is the scope of our cyber-vulnerability. We hear

almost daily anecdotal reports of viruses, or worms, and crashes, but still do not

know the true magnitude of the problem. We do not know how much is at risk, how

much is being spent to protect ourselves, and what needs to spent in the future.

That has led to a fairly arbitrary set of appropriations figures, probably considerably lower than what is needed, and probably not always targeted to the programs

that are most likely to produce results. I am troubled by the Administration’s FY04

budget request which under-funds cyber security priorities dictated by the Cyber Security Research and Development Act. I do not understand why NIST grant programs, which have been successful in the past, are being discarded for the near to

distant future. I hear that we need to save money so that we can offset giant tax

cuts for the rich that are supposed to grow our economy and create jobs.

But what kind of economy will we have if our power grid is compromised, or if

people are afraid to fly because the computers that run our air-traffic have been

hacked, or if we lost the Internet shopping industry? We need to make smart investments now. We need to make sure our agencies are communicating well and covering all bases, and filling in security gaps.

We are in a massive restructuring now of all of our nation’s homeland security

efforts. We cannot do this in the dark. We need congressional insight and oversight.

We need public and private sector input. And we need guidance from the top, from

the Administration.

I look forward to the dialogue. Thank you.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you very much. For the purpose of

an introduction, the Chair recognizes Mr. Miller of North Carolina.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to introduce Dr. Charles McQueary, who is here and I believe is a conVerDate 11-MAY-2000 22:12 Oct 04, 2003 Jkt 086992 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\WORKD\FULL03\051403\86992 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
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stituent, so—although I think as we were chatting just before the

Committee began, have you now moved within Greensboro?

Dr. MCQUEARY. Yes, I have.

Mr. MILLER. And where do you now live?

Dr. MCQUEARY. I now live in the Grandover complex, which I believe is Congressman Coble—if I am not mistaken.

Chairman BOEHLERT. The gentleman’s time is expired.

Mr. MILLER. Well, I have this all prepared. I might as well go

ahead.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Please do.

Dr. MCQUEARY. But I still do—I do own a home in your district,

though, as you point out, that I haven’t sold it yet.

Mr. MILLER. And I will speak—I hope you will speak to whoever

buys the home and mention my name to them. Well, my former

constituent, Dr. McQueary, is well regarded in Greensboro in both

the business community and in—for his civic work. In the private

sector, he was the president of the General Dynamics Advanced

Technology Systems. That company focused on electro-optic undersea systems, networking and decision support systems, active control systems, and signal processing solutions and software solutions. I am told that that was a good job for Dr. McQueary. He also

was a respected member of the community for his civic leadership.

He was a member of the Board of Trustees of North Carolina A&T,

North Carolina State University. He was on the Guilford Technical

Community College as President, CEO Advisory Board. He was

chairman of Action Greensboro, a political—a public education initiative, and a member of the Board of Guilford County Education

Network. He was also chairman of the Board and a campaign chair

for the United Way of Greensboro and a member of the Board of

the World Trade Center of North Carolina. So I am pleased to welcome my former constituent, Dr. McQueary.

Dr. MCQUEARY. Thank you.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Mr. Hall was tempted to claim him for

Texas. This is Dr. McQueary’s first visit to the Committee, and we

welcome him here. I gave you the privilege, Mr. Miller, of

introducing——

Mr. HALL. Mr. Chairman, we all own Dr. Colwell, though.

Dr. COLWELL. Thank you, sir.

Chairman BOEHLERT. The other three witnesses are all good

friends of long standing and have appeared many times and are

valuable resources for the Committee, but this is your maiden voyage, Dr. McQueary, and we wish you smooth sailing. I avoided introducing you, because this committee created the position of

Under Secretary for Science and Technology, because we thought

it was so important. And I was so pleased that the Administration

agreed with that and Governor Ridge did, also. But I wasn’t sure

if I was—I would be well-received in introducing you, because I am

not sure if you want to thank me or shoot me right about now, because you have got a most demanding position. But we are glad to

have you here.

And we are always pleased to see Dr. Rita Colwell back. This

Committee has worked long and well with you. And we are very

proud of your outstanding accomplishments and the work of the

National Science Foundation. And with NIST, Dr. Arden Bement,

15

a good friend of long standing. We have a special relationship, too,

and we are glad to welcome you back. And Dr. Tether, it is good

to see you back.

I think we should all appreciate the fact that we have four critically important people performing exceptional service for the Nation in their positions. And so we anxiously await your testimony.

We will start with you, Dr. McQueary. You are first up.

STATEMENT OF DR. CHARLES E. McQUEARY, UNDER SECRETARY FOR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, DEPARTMENT OF

HOMELAND SECURITY

Dr. MCQUEARY. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Boehlert,

Congressman Hall, and all Members of the Committee. It is a

pleasure for me to accept the opportunity to be with you today and

discuss the cyber security R&D from a Homeland Security perspective. It is an honor and a great responsibility to lead the Department of Homeland Security’s scientific efforts to meet the challenges of securing the technology supporting our nation’s infrastructures, loosely referred to as ‘‘cyber’’. And I do want to say

thank you for having created this position, and it is an honor for

me to be the first person to fill the position. And I do thank you

for the work that this committee did in forming that group.

An important mission of the Science and Technology Directorate

is to develop and deploy leading technologies and capabilities so

those who serve to secure the Homeland can perform effectively

and efficiently. This Directorate will respond, then, to the needs

and requirements in this area from within the Department.

The threats to our Homeland are many. We must constantly

monitor these threats and assess our vulnerabilities to them. We

must develop new or improved capabilities to counter chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, explosive, and cyber threats and mitigate the effects of terrorist attacks, should they occur.

The Science and Technology Directorate’s program must also enhance the conventional missions of the Department to protect and

provide assistance to civilians in response to national disasters, law

enforcement needs, and other activities. Thus, Science and Technology’s key specific areas of emphasis are as follows: develop and

deploy state-of-the-art, high-performance, low operating cost systems to prevent the illicit traffic of radiological and nuclear materials and weapons into and within the United States. The second

item is to provide state-of-the-art, high-performance, low operating

cost systems to rapidly detect and mitigate the consequences of the

release of biological and chemical agents. Third, provide state-ofthe-art, high-performance, low operating cost systems to detect and

prevent illicit, high-explosive transit into and within the United

States. Fourth, enhance the missions of all of the departmental

operational units through targeted research, development, test and

evaluation, and systems engineering and development. Fifth, develop and provide capabilities for protecting cyber and other critical

infrastructures. The sixth item is to develop capabilities to prevent

technology surprise by anticipating emerging threats. And last, develop, coordinate, and implement technical standards for chemical,

biological, radiological, and nuclear countermeasures.

16

This Directorate will implement its activities through focused

portfolios that address biological, chemical, radiological, nuclear,

and cyber threats; secondly, support the research and development

needs of the operational units of the Department; and last, receive

innovative input from private industry and academia as well as national and federal laboratories.

Now allow me to specifically address the Science and Technology

Directorate in response to cyber security concerns. The operational

responsibility for this mission within Homeland Security resides

with the Under Secretary for Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection. The Under Secretary for Science and Technology

carries the responsibility for ensuring that the necessary research,

development, test and evaluation activities are carried out to support the IAIP mission in cyber security. In practice, the term ‘‘cyber

security’’ is broadly defined within the community. S&T uses ‘‘cyber

security’’ to mean ‘‘securing the availability, integrity, and confidentiality of those services provided through technology, such as

hardware and software systems connected to public and private

networks that support the critical infrastructures’’.

Our approach to cyber security is essentially to apply the technology that supports the infrastructures. To address cyber security

issues, we recognize that R&D efforts are one facet of a larger mosaic that includes elements, such as identification and mitigation

of the threat, industry partnership and compliance, and physical

security.

Today, there are many cyber security R&D efforts underway and

more yet to be established that address a range of cyber security

issues. These represent opportunities for Science and Technology,

our organization, to leverage existing work in order to address

those needs and technology gaps that Department of Homeland Security identifies as important to securing the Homeland.

We have started to work with familiarization and coordination

across the federal sector. During the DHS transition and start-up

period, members of the Transition Team began to participate in the

INFOSEC Research Council. Members of this Council include

DARPA, the NIST, and National Science Foundation, and it is our

method of coordinating with the community on this topic.

Additionally, within our staff for Homeland—for the Science and

Technology Directorate, we have detailees from NIST, the Secret

Service, National Science Foundation, and NSA to help craft a national strategy in cyber R&D that is required by the Homeland Security Act and to identify areas for investment that would be carried out by Science and Technology.

One of the S&T’s key areas of emphasis is our role in establishing DHS technical standards, which will establish DHS performance criteria for acceptable cyber security—cyber protection

technologies. Currently, there is a Memorandum of Understanding

nearing completion for signature between DHS and the technical

administration of the Department of Commerce. This MOU is an

agreement to work together to develop common standards to support U.S. industry and the Department of Homeland Security.

As I noted earlier, it is this Directorate’s role to support the

needs and requirements of DHS and, in particular, those defined

by the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection DirecVerDate 11-MAY-2000 22:12 Oct 04, 2003 Jkt 086992 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\WORKD\FULL03\051403\86992 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
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torate to provide an enduring resource and ensure the—to provide

an enduring resource and assure that the necessary RDT&E activities are carried out.

To support the IAIP mission in cyber security, we intend to create a DHS R&D cyber security center. The DHS R&D cyber security center will team with, through partnership and cooperation,

with those representatives here at this table with me today. This

center will provide DHS focus for R&D activities and leverage the

many, many cyber security RDT&E efforts underway in the defense

and intelligence, academic, and private laboratory communities. We

see this as a critical—this is critical to coordinate the resources and

efforts across the government R&D community to accelerate technical capabilities that address DHS priorities.

The center will have five primary roles or functions as follows.

The center will promote and coordinate cyber security research, innovation, invention, and evaluation in support of the DHS mission

needs. It will develop strategic research and development programs

and create testing and evaluation programs to address specific gaps

in U.S. cyber security capabilities. For example, a unique feature

of the center will be the utilization of existing or the development

of new test beds where cyber security methods, tools, and approaches can be exercised in a controlled environment and evaluated against common, accepted standards.

Developing the test beds and measurement performance standards will be an element of the center’s program. It will provide

communication and coordination among various public and private

organizations dealing with the many diverse aspects of cyber security. The center will foster national and international cooperation

in creating a robust and defensible cyber security infrastructure. It

will support the operational needs of the IAIP Directorate relative

to vulnerability assessments and new tools and methods for enhancing cyber security. In addition to responding to DHS research,

development, test, and evaluation needs, the center will provide

emergency response and reach-back capabilities to on-call technical

experts to support rapid vulnerability mitigation in response to

cyber threats. It will cooperate with the National Science Foundation to foster educational programs and curriculum development to

help ensure the Nation has the necessary human resources to

present—who possess the requisite knowledge and skills to advance and secure the Nation’s cyber infrastructure. This will be

done in conjunction with participating universities, who will serve

as a nucleus for creating the next generation of scientists and engineers.

In closing, I would like to thank the Members of the Science

Committee for the opportunity to speak with you today about the

Science and Technology concept for addressing cyber security research and development. We will work hard to partner with the

community to address the needs and requirements of DHS as well

as those gaps that exist between the many significant projects already developed. S&T is determined to support the mission of DHS

to protect the critical infrastructures of this nation by working to

secure the technology that supports them.

18

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, this concludes my

prepared remarks, and I would be happy to take any questions that

you might have at this time.

[The prepared statement of Dr. McQueary follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHARLES E. MCQUEARY

Good morning Chairman Boehlert, Congressman Hall, Congressmen and Members

of the Committee. It is a pleasure for me to accept your invitation to be with you

today to discuss cyber security R&D. It is an honor and great responsibility to lead

the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Science and Technology Directorate’s

efforts to meet the challenges of securing the technology supporting our nation’s information technology infrastructures, often termed ‘‘cyber.’’ An important mission of

this Directorate is to develop and deploy leading technologies and capabilities so

those who serve to secure the homeland can perform effectively and efficiently—they

are my customers. This Directorate will respond then to the needs and requirements

in this area from within the department.

The threats to our homeland are many. We must constantly monitor these threats

and assess our vulnerabilities to them; develop new or improved capabilities to

counter chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, explosive and cyber threats; and

mitigate the effects of terrorists attacks should they occur. The Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate’s program must also enhance all of the Department’s missions, whether or not they are focused on the threat of terrorism.

Throughout the initial planning process for the S&T Directorate we have been

guided by current threat assessments, our understanding of capabilities that exist

today or that can be expected to appear in the near-term, and, importantly, by the

priorities spelled out in the President’s National Strategies for Homeland Security,

Physical Protection of Critical Infrastructures and Key Assets and to Secure Cyberspace.

Thus Science and Technology’s key specific areas of emphasis are to:

1. Develop and deploy state-of-the-art, high-performance, low-operating-cost

systems to prevent the illicit traffic of radiological/nuclear materials and

weapons into and within the United States.

2. Provide state-of-the-art, high-performance, low-operating-cost systems to rapidly detect and mitigate the consequences of the release of biological and

chemical agents.

3. Provide state-of-the-art, high-performance, low-operating-cost systems to detect and prevent illicit high explosives transit into and within the United

States.

4. Enhance missions of all Department operational units through targeted research, development, test and evaluation, and systems engineering and development.

5. Develop and provide capabilities for protecting cyber and other critical infrastructures.

6. Develop capabilities to prevent technology-surprise by anticipating emerging

threats.

7. Develop, coordinate and implement technical standards for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear countermeasures.

We have requested $803M in FY04 to provide applied research, development,

demonstrations, and testing of products and systems that address these key areas

of emphasis. This directorate will implement its activities through focused portfolios

that address biological, chemical, radiological and nuclear, and cyber threats; support the research and development needs of the operational units of the Department; and receive innovative input from private industry and academia as well as

national and federal laboratories. In particular, the Homeland Security Advanced

Research Projects Agency (HSARPA) will have an essential role in meeting the goals

and objectives of the Department and the Directorate across the range of the portfolios.

Allow me now to specifically address the Science and Technology Directorate

(S&T) response to critical infrastructure protection concerns, including cyber security. Consistent with law and policy, the operational assistance and advisory role

and responsibilities for certain elements of cyber security resides with the Under

Secretary for Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection (IAIP). The Under

Secretary for S&T carries the responsibility for ensuring that the necessary research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) activities are carried out to supVerDate 11-MAY-2000 22:12 Oct 04, 2003 Jkt 086992 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 C:\WORKD\FULL03\051403\86992 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
19

port the IAIP mission in cyber security. In practice, the term ‘‘cyber security’’ is

broadly defined within the community. S&T uses ‘‘cyber security’’ to mean securing

the availability, integrity and confidentiality of those services provided through technology such as hardware and software systems, connected to public and private networks (i.e., voice, data and Internet Protocol networks) that support the critical infrastructures. Our concern with cyber security is essentially applied to the technology that supports the infrastructures. To address cyber security concerns, we recognize that R&D efforts are an element of a larger mosaic that includes elements

such as identification and mitigation of the threat, industry partnership and compliance, and physical security.

Today there are many cyber security R&D efforts already underway, and more yet

to be established, that address a range of cyber security issues. These represent opportunities for S&T to leverage existing work in order to address both those needs

and technology gaps for the Federal Government and industry as important to securing the Homeland. Federal gaps are identified through annual agency and Inspector General reports required under the Federal Information Security Management Act. Vulnerability assessments will also help identify federal gaps. There is a

wide array of technologies that address many needs today not only in government

laboratories, but also throughout the commercial sector. However, the existence of

many hard and currently unsolved problems, and the changing nature of the threat,

will require an ongoing research effort.

We have started the work of familiarization and coordination across the federal

sector. During the DHS transition and startup period, members of the transition

team began to participate in the Infosec Research Council. Membership in this council includes DARPA, NIST and NSF; and it is our means of coordinating with the

community on this topic. In addition, we have been in communication with the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and will be participating in the interagency

R&D coordination activities of the National Science and Technology Council.

One of S&T’s key areas of emphasis is our role in establishing DHS technical

standards, which will establish DHS performance criteria for acceptable cyber-protection technologies. Currently, there is a Memorandum of Understanding presented

for signature between DHS and the Technology Administration at the Department

of Commerce; this MOU is an agreement to work together to develop common standards to support U.S. Industry and DHS. We will work closely with NIST in this endeavor, and have a person on staff detailed from NIST to address cyber security programs and standards.

As I noted earlier, it is this directorate’s role to support the needs and requirements of DHS, in particular those defined by the IAIP Directorate. The Science and

Technology directorate carries the responsibility for ensuring that the necessary

RDT&E activities are carried out to support the IAIP mission in cyber security. To

provide an enduring resource to help meet our mission and responsibilities, we intend to create a DHS R&D Cyber Security Center.

The DHS Cyber Security R&D Center will team through partnership and cooperation with NSF and NIST. This center will provide a DHS focus for R&D activities

and leverage the many cyber security RDT&E efforts underway in the defense and

intelligence, academic and private laboratory communities. We see this as critical

to coordinate the resources and efforts across the government R&D community to

accelerate technical capabilities that address DHS priorities.

The center will have five primary roles or functions, as follows:

• Promoting and coordinating cyber security research, innovation, invention

and evaluation in support of the DHS mission needs. It will develop strategic

research and development programs, and create testing and evaluation programs to address specific gaps in U.S. cyber security capabilities. For example, a unique feature of the Center will be the utilization of existing, or the

development of new, test beds where cyber security methods, tools, and approaches can be exercised in a controlled environment and evaluated against

common, accepted standards. Developing the test beds and measurement-performance standards will be an element of the Center’s program.

• Providing communication and coordination among various public and private

organizations dealing with the many diverse aspects of cyber security. The

Center will foster national and international cooperation in creating a robust

and defensible cyber infrastructure.

• Supporting the operational needs of the IAIP directorate relative to vulnerability assessments and new tools and methods for enhancing cyber security.

• Cooperating with NSF to foster educational programs and curriculum development to help ensure the Nation has the necessary human resources who

possess the requisite knowledge and skills to advance and secure the Nation’s

20

cyber infrastructure. This will be done in conjunction with participating universities who will serve as a nucleus for creating the next generation of scientists and engineers.

Although much of the S&T portfolio will be focused on very difficult problems requiring extensive research, a portion of the program will be dedicated to addressing

nearer-term problems in support of DHS mission requirements. In addition to establishing the center through FY03 funding, S&T will begin work on the following specific areas:

• Supporting the U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center and

CERT/Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University on a comprehensive assessment of Insider Threats and defense strategies.

Æ The need to identify and mitigate the insider threat is critical to the

physical and cyber security plans of the critical infrastructures of the

United States.

Æ Reducing the ability of inside actors to assist outside threats will provide

increased security to the critical infrastructures of this country.

• Conducting a feasibility study for trace-back and geo-location of source attack.

Æ The watch and warning mission of the IAIP directorate requires the ability to identify and track the source location of cyber attackers.

Æ This study will determine the status of currently available trace-back and

geographical location technology, capability gaps, and potential policy implications.

• Developing patch verification technology in support of IAIP’s patch management efforts to accelerate the speed with which cyber-protection software updates are evaluated, validated, and applied to civilian organizations.

Æ Computer network attacks have historically exploited known, published

vulnerabilities. All of the infected systems were without the appropriate

patches in time to close the vulnerabilities and ensure protection. As a

result, there was significant economic impact and resource availability

issues to the private businesses that participate in the critical infrastructure of this country.

Æ Many times the failure to apply the patch was a result of time required

to test the patch against a duplicate of a critical system to ensure there

would be no negative impact on business or government critical services.

The goal of this project is to provide an efficient, low cost solution to this

problem.

Æ This study will determine the feasibility of this technology and recommend potential solutions for further RDT&E.

• Expanding development of technologies for detecting covert threats that carry

the risk of creating major disruption to critical infrastructures such as financial systems before they are discovered.

Æ Existing intrusion and threat detection systems utilizing signature based

identification often provide false positives or large amounts of log data

so that their effectiveness has diminished in the overall cyber security architecture. The benefits of the next-generation intrusion detection system

will identify and categorize all intrusions regardless of the threat signature.

Æ This project will begin research, development, test and evaluation on

next generation detection systems.

• Conducting a feasibility study for the scalability and technology application

of Secure Border Gateway Protocol and Secure Domain Name Services.

Æ The Secure Border Gateway Protocol and Secure Domain Name Services

protocol seek to secure two vulnerable protocols, on which the movement

of network traffic is depends.

Æ This study will determine the feasibility and scalability of these protocols

on existing network infrastructure; and make any recommendations on

the need for further RDT&E if required.

We are therefore taking steps in S&T to establish key relationships with the

major cyber security R&D organizations to provide a focus for DHS technology innovation and capability development in a new Center, and have defined initial projects

21

in support of the Secret Service and IAIP near-term needs. As the IAIP Directorate

begins to define its long-term goals and needs, we will leverage other federally funded activities, academia, and private industry to provide solutions.

In closing, I would like to thank the Members of the Science Committee for the

opportunity to speak with you today about the Science and Technology concept for

addressing cyber security research and development. We will work with diligence

to partner with the R&D community to address the needs and requirements of DHS,

as well as those gaps that exist between the many productive projects already developed. S&T is determined to support the mission of DHS to protect the critical infrastructures of this nation by working to secure the technology that supports them.

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be pleased to address any questions you may have.

BIOGRAPHY FOR CHARLES E. MCQUEARY

On January 10 President Bush announced his intention to nominate Dr. Charles

E. McQueary to be Under Secretary for Science and Technology.

Most recently, Dr. McQueary served as President, General Dynamics Advanced

Technology systems, in Greensboro, N.C., a company that focuses on electro-optic

undersea systems, networking and decision support systems, active control systems,

signal processing solutions and software solutions.

Prior to General Dynamics, Dr. McQueary served as President and Vice President

of business units for AT&T, Lucent Technologies, and as a Director for AT&T Bell

Laboratories.

In addition to his professional experience, Dr. McQueary has served his community in many leadership roles—as Chair of the Board, and Campaign Chair, of the

United Way of Greensboro; Member of the Board of Trustees of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical (A&T) State University; Member of the Guilford Technical

Community College (GTCC) President’s CEO Advisory Committee; Member of Board

of World Trade Center North Carolina; Chair for Action Greensboro Public Education Initiative; and as a Member of the Board of Guilford County Education Network.

Dr. McQueary holds both a Ph.D. in Engineering Mechanics and an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas, Austin. The University of Texas

has named McQueary a Distinguished Engineering Graduate.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you very much. You are now a veteran testifying——

Dr. MCQUEARY. Thank you.

Chairman BOEHLERT [continuing]. Before the Science Committee.

Dr. MCQUEARY. Thank you.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Welcome back, Dr. Colwell. You are up

next.

STATEMENT OF DR. RITA R. COLWELL, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL

SCIENCE FOUNDATION

Dr. COLWELL. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I

appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss

the importance of improving the security of our information infrastructure.

Last November, as a result of your strong leadership, Mr. Chairman, Congress enacted and the President signed into law the Cyber

Security Research and Development Act of 2002. This law authorizes important research and education activities to protect the Nation’s critical information technology systems against failures from

accident or attack. NSF is fully supportive of this action.

NSF’s attention to cyber security dates back to at least 1978 with

an investment in cryptography that led to the public key infrastructure that is widely used to secure cyber transactions today. In

2001, and I would point out September 6, 2001, we established a

trusted computing research program to focus attention on the continuing need for research in this area. In 2002, we saw a rapid rise

22

in cyber security interest by the research community. And this

year, I have to tell you, we are dealing with a flood of proposals

as I previously shared with you. The Cyber Security Research and

Development Act provides us with new authority and an additional

sense of urgency to expand our capacity to guard against attacks

on our nation’s computer and network systems.

Let me briefly share with you the current state of NSF funding

for cyber security research, tell you where we are—what we are

doing, and then indicate where we are going. When the appropriation process was completed in February, our Cyber Directorate doubled its funding for research to $30 million. In addition, the NSF

Federal Cyber Service—Scholarships for Service program provides

$11 million to increase the production of information assurance and

computer security professionals. A total of about $53 million is focused on cyber security, because NSF clearly understands the urgency of the need for cyber security. With these investments, NSF

is focusing on discovery, learning, and innovation to secure today’s

systems, to embed contemporary security principles and practices

in all aspects across the board of cyber systems design in many—

in all disciplines, and to prepare a world-class workforce of information technology professionals with state-of-the-art security skills

that span research all the way to operations.

Beginning in 2004, the entire suite of cyber security activities

will be managed under one integrated, crosscutting program called

‘‘Cyber Trust.’’ The Cyber Trust portfolio of awards will include a

range of multidisciplinary, multi-investigator awards, as well as

the more focused single investigator awards. And we believe this

will ensure the NSF’s whole investment in cyber security research

and education is greater than simply the sum of its parts.

In order to generate innovative approaches to the complex computer and network security problems that our nation faces, NSF

will fund projects of sufficient scope and scale to foster multidisciplinary collaboration between computer scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and social science researchers. We will make awards

that range in size from single investigator grants to multi-investigator center-scale awards of up to $3 million. Now this portfolio of

Cyber Trust investments will ensure that a powerful mix of cutting-edge research is funded through a number of competitive

awards.

NSF will also inform the community of opportunities to compete

for the center-scale awards in these, and other related areas,

through programs like the STC’s, the science and technology centers, the engineering research centers, and the Industry/University

Cooperative Research Centers.

Now I would like to point out that we changed the title ‘‘Cyber

Trust,’’ because our understanding is that the public not only

wants their information systems to be secure, but they want to be

able to trust them in all kinds of situations. As a simple example,

they need to be able to trust the data, their data, will be kept private. NSF believes that a highly collaborative and inclusive coordinated effort is necessary to overcome the many technological challenges that are inherent in securing the Nation’s cyber systems.

Accordingly, NSF will seek to establish a multi-sector cyber security partnership, a public/private partnership that will allow NSF

23

to develop strategic frameworks to guide future research and education investments in the field, investments that must be made by

both the public and the private sectors.

NSF will engage key federal agencies in the partnership endeavor, and we have already begun to do so in discussions with NIST.

We will draw on the current interagency efforts in this area. The

coordination has begun strongly with NIST, because NIST has the

powerful connections to industry. In addition, NSF staff are very

active in formal interagency activities that support cyber security

collaborations, like the INFOSEC Research Council and the 12-

agency Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Interagency Working Group. We refer to this as NITRD,

which NSF chairs. The Working Group, we chair.

NSF will convene a series of workshops this summer to engage

researchers, educators, and practitioners in finding the most effective ways to build capacity and to build it quickly. The workshops

will also examine implementation strategies to support faculty

trainee-ships in cyber security. These are programs that will enable

existing Ph.D.s to pursue academic careers in cyber security.

And we scheduled the meeting for mid-August to facilitate multidisciplinary research and education activities by bringing together

all of the principal investigators, the PIs, from the newly integrated

Cyber Trust program. Now this group of PIs will form a research

collaboration network, which will facilitate interaction between

groups of investigators to communicate and coordinate research efforts across disciplinary, organizational, institutional, and geographical boundaries. And the network can then be coupled to the

NIST activities to speed up the practical application of the research

efforts.

Mr. Chairman, the Cyber Security Research and Development Act

addresses a very, very critical need for our nation. NSF is appreciative of the confidence you have expressed in us to lead this effort, and we intend to build on that confidence. And we will make

sure that all of the funds we are allocated and appropriated will

be very well used. We eagerly look forward to working with you

and your staff to ensure that all of the goals of the Act are fulfilled.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Colwell follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF RITA R. COLWELL

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the importance of improving the security of our information infrastructure. Last November, as a result of the strong leadership that

you provided, Congress enacted the Cyber Security Research and Development Act

(Public Law 107–305) of 2002. This law authorizes important research and education activities to build our capacity to gird the Nation’s critical information technology systems against failures from accident or attack.

The Cyber Security Research and Development Act accurately focuses on the need

for research, enhanced integration of activities from the diverse disciplines that impact our ability to secure our systems, and production of computer professionals

with the requisite skills needed to implement the latest cyber security techniques.

NSF agrees wholeheartedly with this focus and we are moving expeditiously to

address these needs, both through focused investments with current year appropriations and by carefully fashioning plans for implementation in FY 2004 and beyond.

Persistent Challenges and Preceding Actions

Computers and networked systems are ubiquitous in our society. Over the past

decade, the Internet has grown tremendously, from its early state as a small netVerDate 11-MAY-2000 22:12 Oct 04, 2003 Jkt 086992 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 C:\WORKD\FULL03\051403\86992 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
24

work of academicians, into a full-fledged vital information infrastructure that Americans rely on as much as they rely on electricity, water, and roadway networks. Entire sectors of our economy run minute-to-minute mission critical operations over

nationally and internationally networked systems. The increase in our reliance on

these systems, combined with the increased threat of malicious attack, has shed

new light on the importance of generating new knowledge to secure them. New

knowledge workers are also needed to deploy and operate these systems safely and

reliably.

Today’s computing and communications infrastructure does many things well, but

suffers from a number of flaws and weaknesses that make it less than dependable,

particularly in the case of attacks. These shortcomings include (1) latent flaws in

widely distributed software, (2) decreasing diversity of software components, (3) poor

technical means for managing security infrastructure, (4) inadequate technical controls for needed collaboration policies, (5) lack of convenient, scalable, strong authentication, and (6) inadequate security mechanisms for new technologies. Further,

the infrastructure lacks effective means for detecting when these flaws and weaknesses are exploited, and for responding when such exploitations are detected.

It is appropriate that government devote substantial public resources to develop

knowledge and capabilities in the area of cyber security. Market pressures tend to

emphasize time-to-market of software and systems. Often IT products are released

with known flaws that weaken reliability of the system and may create severe

vulnerabilities. Improving the quality and diminishing the costs associated with embedding security principles into all cyber systems design and development will be

essential to our success.

NSF has a longstanding commitment to creating new knowledge that will improve

the security of our nation’s computer and network infrastructure. NSF attention to

cyber security dates back to a 1978 investment in cryptography, which led to the

public key infrastructure that is widely used for secure cyber transactions today.

Our expanded FY 2003 investments in Trusted Computing, Data and Applications

Security, Network Security and the Federal Cyber Service programs shows how our

sense of urgency in this field has grown. With the passage of the Cyber Security Research and Development Act, Congress has allowed us to act on this sense of urgency

and expand the Nation’s capacity to guard against attacks on our computer and network systems.

Current Year Actions

Mr. Chairman, you and this committee were an important part of the support for

the appropriation increase that NSF received in February. Cyber security research

funding has increased by $15 million over FY 2002 to reach $30 million. With the

Scholarships for Service program, this brings the agency’s total FY 2003 investment

in cyber security to $41 million.

A Strategic Approach

In short NSF seeks to enable discovery, learning and innovation that will:

• Secure today’s systems;

• Embed contemporary security principles and practices in all aspects of cyber

systems design and development of tomorrow’s systems; and

• Prepare a world-class workforce of information technology professionals, with

state-of-the-art security skills spanning research to operations.

NSF will do so, informed by the interests and efforts of its partners in the cyber

security field, including those in academe, industry and other government agencies.

Our investments are guided by three core strategies that have proven effective

across all science and engineering domains.

1. Develop intellectual capital.

NSF invests in cyber security activities, including multidisciplinary projects,

which enhance the individual and collective capacity to contribute cyber security

solutions, thus building cyber security capacity for many years to come. The agency uses its competitive, merit-review process to ensure that only research and

education projects of the highest quality are funded.

2. Integrate research and education.

NSF investments in cyber security integrate research and education, assuring

that findings and methods of cyber security research are quickly and effectively

communicated in a broader context, to a larger audience and are thus more effectively embedded in practice.

3. Promote Partnerships.

25

Effective collaboration and partnerships between researchers, educators and practitioners in academe, industry and government will enable the timely transformation of research outcomes into technological innovation that will secure critical cyber systems resident in both the public and private sectors. NSF has a

strong institutional tradition of enabling partnerships among the Nation’s leading

scientists, engineers and educators. In convening researchers, educators, and

other stakeholders we draw on the expertise and deliberations of a vigorous and

critical scientific community, exposing new ideas and building consensus for them.

In FY 2003 and beyond, NSF will build on and increase coordination between the

activities that we have supported for some years. Beginning in FY 2004, the entire

suite of cyber security activities will be managed under one integrated, cross-cutting

program called Cyber Trust.

I would note that we chose the title ‘‘Cyber Trust’’ because our understanding is

that the public not only wants their information systems to be secure, but that they

want to trust them in all kinds of situations. As a simple example, they need to

be able to trust that data will be kept private.

The Cyber Trust portfolio of awards will include a range of multidisciplinary,

multi-investigator awards, as well as more focused single investigator awards. This

will ensure that NSF’s whole investment in cyber security research and education

is greater than the sum of its parts.

In order to generate innovative approaches to the complex computer and network

security problems that our nation faces, NSF will fund projects of sufficient scope

and center-scale to foster multidisciplinary collaboration between computer scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and social science researchers. Awards will

range from single investigator types to multi-investigator awards of up to

$3,000,000. This portfolio of Cyber Trust investments will ensure that a rich mix

of cutting-edge research is funded. NSF will also inform the community of opportunities to compete for center-scale awards in these and related areas through activities like the Science and Technology Center, Engineering Research Center, and Industry/University Cooperative Research Center programs.

Identification and Coordination of Cyber Security Priorities

NSF, in its discussions with the scientific and engineering community, has identified five vital research areas at the frontier:

1. Manageable security

2. Empirical cyber security studies

3. Cyber security foundations

4. Cyber security for next generation technology

5. Cyber security across disciplines

These research areas include and are representative of the many research areas

included in Section 4(a) of the Act.

NSF believes that a highly collaborative and inclusive, coordinated effort is necessary to overcome the many technological challenges inherent in securing the Nation’s cyber systems. Only by drawing upon the expertise resident in relevant stakeholder organizations, including industry, academia, and government, and by aligning the interests and investments of these broad stakeholder groups, can we ensure

that the best solutions are identified and enacted to protect the Nation’s vital information technology resources.

Accordingly, NSF will seek to establish a multi-sector cyber security partnership.

The partnership will allow NSF to develop a strategic framework to guide future

research and education investments in the field; investments likely to be made by

both the public and the private sectors.

NSF will engage key federal agencies in the partnership endeavor, by drawing on

current interagency efforts in this area. For example, NSF staff are very active in

formal interagency activities that support cyber security collaborations, such as in

the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD)

Interagency Working Group (IWG) that includes representatives from the Defense

Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department of Defense, the National Security Agency, and others.

Dr. Peter Freeman, the NSF Assistant Director for Computer and Information

Science and Engineering (CISE) has talked with Dr. Arden Bement to establish formal collaboration between NSF and NIST in the area of cyber security and program

staff will carry the coordination forward. As chair of the NITRD IWG Dr. Freeman

has also met with Dr. David Nelson, Director of the National Coordination Office

for NITRD, to discuss ways to enhance the coordination activities of the IWG in the

area of cyber security.

26

Demonstrating further NSF leadership in cyber security, an NSF/CISE Program

Officer co-chairs the High Confidence Software and Systems program coordination

area of NITRD. This subgroup is working to define the federal portfolio of cyber security research and development, and will identify gaps. NSF will draw upon the

work of this group to inform its future research investments.

NSF also has a long tradition of working with industry partners in science and

engineering. By encouraging strong industry participation in the development of a

cyber security research and education framework, and in the subsequent funding of

appropriate research and education activities, NSF hopes to improve both the transfer of new knowledge into the marketplace and the capacity of current and future

generations of IT and information assurance professionals.

Capacity Building

To establish the partnership, NSF will convene a series of workshops to begin in

summer 2003. These workshops will engage researchers, educators and practitioners

representing academic, industry, and government stakeholder organizations to develop community consensus on cyber security research and education needs and opportunities. In addition to refining research opportunities, the workshops will focus

on integration, scale, and capacity building.

The first workshops planned are described below.

1. Comprehensive Cyber Security Needs Assessment

In August 2003, NSF will convene an invitational workshop of academic, industrial, and government leaders to help assess the needs and identify the strategies

necessary to prepare a world-class cyber security workforce. In order to facilitate

educational innovation in cyber security, design concepts for new cyber security-related curricula will be devised. Implementation strategies will be discussed to determine the best way to deliver cyber security education to a broad audience. Strategies will focus on curriculum for three levels of education:

Æ Bachelor’s/Associate’s degree programs to prepare systems administration

and IT security operations professionals.

Æ Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programs to prepare systems design and development professionals with specified skills in security.

Æ Ph.D. programs to prepare researchers and educators for careers in information security.

The workshop will also examine implementation strategies to support faculty

traineeships in cyber security. These programs will enable recent Ph.D. graduates

to pursue academic careers in cyber security.

Following this workshop, NSF will assess the extent to which its current capacitybuilding programs address the needs defined by the workshop attendees. For example, the Advanced Technology Education (ATE) centers are comprehensive national

or regional cooperative efforts involving two-year colleges, four-year colleges and

universities, secondary schools, business, industry, and government. This program

might serve as a valuable model for other such activities in the future. In the meantime it will provide a potential platform for cyber security activities at the Bachelor’s and Associate’s degree levels.

I should also note that the Federal Cyber Service: Scholarships for Service (SFS)

program ‘‘seeks to increase the number of qualified students entering the fields of

information assurance and computer security and to increase the capacity of the

United States higher education enterprise to continue to produce professionals in

these fields to meet the needs of our increasingly technological society.’’ This program directly addresses the future needs of the Federal Government for access to

skilled information security Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Ph.D. recipients. The program

also provides funding to schools to ‘‘improve the quality and increase the production

of information assurance and computer security professionals through professional

development of information assurance faculty and the development of academic programs.’’

2. Cyber Security Community

In order to facilitate multidisciplinary research and education activities, NSF will

convene a meeting of all Principal Investigators (PIs) from the newly integrated

Cyber Trust Program. This group of PIs will form a Research Collaboration Network. The RCN will facilitate interaction between groups of investigators, to communicate and coordinate research efforts across disciplinary, organizational, institutional, and geographical boundaries. It will lead to integration of the research activities of scientists working independently on cyber security topics of common interest,

to nurture a sense of community among cyber security researchers, to attract new

27

scientists to the field, and to minimize isolation and maximize cooperation in research, training, outreach and educational activities. Together, the members of this

network will explore further means by which to address the complex issues faced

by the cyber security community as a whole.

The Cyber Security Research and Development Act addresses a critical weakness

in the security of our nation. NSF is appreciative to the Committee for extending

its confidence to us. We look forward to working with you to ensure that the goals

of the Act are fulfilled.

BIOGRAPHY FOR RITA R. COLWELL

Dr. Rita R. Colwell became the 11th Director of the National Science Foundation

on August 4, 1998.

Since taking office, Dr. Colwell has spearheaded the agency’s emphases in K–12

science and mathematics education, graduate science and engineering education/

training and the increased participation of women and minorities in science and engineering.

Her policy approach has enabled the agency to strengthen its core activities, as

well as establish support for major initiatives, including Nanotechnology, Biocomplexity, Information Technology, Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences and the

21st Century Workforce. In her capacity as NSF Director, she serves as Co-chair

of the Committee on Science of the National Science and Technology Council.

Under her leadership, the Foundation has received significant budget increases,

and its funding recently reached a level of more than $4.8 billion.

Before coming to NSF, Dr. Colwell was President of the University of Maryland

Biotechnology Institute, 1991–1998, and she remains Professor of Microbiology and

Biotechnology (on leave) at the University Maryland. She was also a member of the

National Science Board from 1984 to 1990.

Dr. Colwell has held many advisory positions in the U.S. Government, non-profit

science policy organizations, and private foundations, as well as in the international

scientific research community. She is a nationally respected scientist and educator,

and has authored or co-authored 16 books and more than 600 scientific publications.

She produced the award-winning film, Invisible Seas, and has served on editorial

boards of numerous scientific journals.

She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Medal of Distinction from

Columbia University, the Gold Medal of Charles University, Prague, and the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Alumna Summa Laude Dignata from the

University of Washington, Seattle.

Dr. Colwell has also been awarded 26 honorary degrees from institutions of higher

education, including her Alma Mater, Purdue University. Dr. Colwell is an honorary

member of the microbiological societies of the UK, France, Israel, Bangladesh, and

the U.S. and has held several honorary professorships, including the University of

Queensland, Australia. A geological site in Antarctica, Colwell Massif, has been

named in recognition of her work in the polar regions.

Dr. Colwell has previously served as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the

American Academy of Microbiology and also as President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Washington Academy of Sciences, the

American Society for Microbiology, the Sigma Xi National Science Honorary Society,

and the International Union of Microbiological Societies. Dr. Colwell is a member

of the National Academy of Sciences.

Born in Beverly, Massachusetts, Dr. Colwell holds a B.S. in Bacteriology and an

M.S. in Genetics, from Purdue University, and a Ph.D. in Oceanography from the

University of Washington.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you very much. And thank you very

much for giving us some precise figures. And Dr. McQueary, when

we get back to you, we would like some figures, if we may.

Dr. Bement.

STATEMENT OF DR. ARDEN L. BEMENT, JR., DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY,

TECHNOLOGY ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF

COMMERCE

Dr. BEMENT. Thank you, Chairman Boehlert. It is good to be

back. I want to thank you, Mr. Hall, and Members of the ComVerDate 11-MAY-2000 22:12 Oct 04, 2003 Jkt 086992 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\WORKD\FULL03\051403\86992 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
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mittee for allowing me to testify today about the contributions of

NIST to strengthen the Nation’s cyber security. Let me congratulate you for your tremendous leadership in advancing robust programs to protect our nation’s information infrastructure from attack.

We at NIST fully agree with the Committee that helping to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, trust, and availability of civilian

information is essential to the functioning of our economy. The

Cyber Security R&D Act and FISMA emphasize NIST’s long-standing statutory responsibilities for developing federal cyber security

standards and guidelines and conducting related research.

Let me review just a few of NIST’s activities and accomplishments. In 2001, Secretary Evans approved the Advanced

Encryption Standard as a federal security standard. I am pleased

to report that the AES is being actively adopted by voluntary

standards bodies and implemented by vendors. In fact, over 70

commercial implementations of the AES have already been validated through our Cryptographic Module Validation Program. This

program has also validated over 500 other modules and another

100 or more are expected within the next year.

To give you a sense of the quality improvement that the program

achieves, statistics from the testing laboratories show that 48 percent of the modules brought in for voluntary testing had security

flaws that were corrected during testing. In other words, without

our program, the Federal Government would have had only a 50/

50 chance of buying correctly implemented cryptography.

In support of our federal responsibilities, we have published security guidelines for e-mail, firewalls, telecommuting, and business

systems contingency planning. We have also published guidelines

on certification and accreditation, which are key components needed for successfully implementing E-government and the new

FISMA mandates for federal agencies. Hundreds of thousands of

copies of our guidelines have been downloaded from our computer

security resource center website. For example, over 400,000 copies

of our contingency planning guide for information technology have

been downloaded since its publication less than one year ago.

Our guidelines and standards provide leadership to industry as

well, as much as our work is voluntarily adopted by industry. Our

Smart Card Interoperatability Specification has been adopted by

federal agencies and is now being considered as an ANSI standard

and eventually as an international standard.

The complexity of systems is growing as components become

smaller. And some of the biggest challenges are in ensuring the integrity of information as it flows from component to component

within a system. This is a major area of research on our horizon,

so while we are moving ahead with critical tasks that are already

on our agenda, we are giving new activities priority in our base

program as resources become available.

This is only a partial representation of our many cyber securityrelated projects and activities. Over the past three years, we have

had appropriations of $26 million for grants, critical infrastructure

protection, expert assist teams of which $5 million is recurring in

NIST laboratory-based programs. And since 9/11, we have been

29

leveraging another $12 million in our Information Technology Research Program toward cyber security-related priorities.

In summary, in fiscal year 2003, approximately $24 million is

being directed toward cyber security research and related programs. And I can report to you, Mr. Chairman, we have already

moved out on many of the requirements specified for NIST under

the Cyber Security R&D Act.

With your permission, I would like to—and also in the interest

of time, submit a list of our current activities for the record.

[NOTE: The information referred to appears in Appendix 2: Additional Material for the Record.]

Chairman BOEHLERT. Without objection, so ordered. It will be included as part of your testimony.

Dr. BEMENT. We accomplished our mission working side-by-side

with our federal partners. NIST understands the Committee’s desire for greater interagency coordination and collaboration, and we

have been reaching out to assist other federal agencies. As Dr.

McQueary indicated, Under Secretary Bond will be meeting with

him very soon, I think it is scheduled for May 19, to sign a Memorandum of Understanding. This MOU will establish a formal mechanism for NIST to cooperate with the Science and Technology Directorate of DHS. We continue to have regular interactions with

NSF and OSTP, and we have had a long and successful relationship with both DARPA and NSA. We are moving forward with the

NRC study called for in the Cyber Security R&D Act. We have already identified the Study Director and are ready to initiate this

study, and I am pleased to say that DARPA will be joining with

us in conducting this study.

Not all of our work has been accomplished from within the Federal Government. NIST awarded $5 million to nine grant recipients

in intrusion detection, telecommunications, wireless security, electric power infrastructure, and compiler security, and we are expecting important advances from this grant program.

In conclusion, I continue to view cyber security research and development as having high priority for NIST and the Nation. NIST

takes its role in cyber security seriously, and we will work with the

Committee to ensure that we are able to carry out our mandate to

work with industry, academia, and standards development organizations to assure the secure flow of vital and sensitive information

throughout our society.

Mr. Chairman, I am grateful to you and this committee for your

support of NIST’s programs, and this concludes my prepared remarks.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Bement follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ARDEN L. BEMENT, JR.

Chairman Boehlert, Mr. Hall, and Members of the Committee, thank you for this

opportunity to testify today about the contributions of the National Institute of

Standards and Technology (NIST) to strengthen the Nation’s cyber security. Let me

congratulate you for your tremendous leadership in advancing robust programs to

protect our nation’s information infrastructure from attack. I know that Technology

Administration Under Secretary Phil Bond and I look forward to working very closely with you to turn your visions into reality. I would like to address the questions

you asked in your invitation to testify and tell you about the many important cyber

security activities currently underway at NIST.

30

1 CNET News, ‘‘Calculating the Cost of Slammer,’’ Robert Lemos, February 3, 2003.

Protecting our nation’s critical infrastructure is of critical importance to our economy and our well-being. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 brought to the

forefront the Nation’s physical and economic vulnerability to an attack within our

borders. Among the Nation’s vulnerabilities are the computer and communications

networks on which the country’s financial, transportation, energy, and water systems and health and emergency services depend. These critical are the underpinning of the Nation’s infrastructure and commerce. The Los Angeles Times in a recent editorial emphasized the importance of meeting this challenge: ‘‘A

cyberterrorist attack would not carry the same shock and carnage of September 11.

But in this information age. . .[a cyberterrorist attack] could be more widespread

and just as economically destructive.’’ We will not be able to address these

vulnerabilities without applied research and development of enabling technologies

in cyber security.

The success of the Internet—connecting more than 100 million computers and

growing—has far outstripped its designers’ wildest expectations. Although the Internet was not originally designed to control power systems, connect massive databases

of medical records or connect millions of homes, today it serves these functions. It

was not designed to run critical safety systems but it now does that as well. We

rely heavily on an open system of networks, so complex that no one person, group

or entity can describe it, model its behavior or predict its reaction to adverse events.

The porous nature of the U.S. network infrastructure leaves the Nation, including

critical federal systems, open to the constant possibility of cyber attacks. Such attacks include the massive distributed denial of service attacks that overwhelm servers with access requests; defacement of web sites and the modification of electronically stored information to spread disinformation and propaganda; ‘‘Zombies’’ that

use computers (located anywhere) as conduits for wide-scale distribution of destructive worms and viruses; and, unauthorized intrusions and sabotage of systems and

networks, potentially resulting in critical infrastructure outages and corruption of

vital data.1

Helping to ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of civilian information is essential to the functioning of our economy and indeed to our democracy.

And, to this end, NIST has had a long-standing and successful role in working with

federal agencies and industry by ensuring the protection of non-national security related cyber and information systems through standards and guidelines development,

testing methodologies, conformity assessment and complementary supporting research.

In 2001, Secretary Evans approved the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) as

a federal security standard. I am pleased to report that the standard is being actively adopted by voluntary standards bodies and implemented by vendors. In fact,

over 70 commercial implementations of the AES have already been validated

through our Cryptographic Module Validation Program.

Enactment of the Cyber Security Research and Development Act (CSRDA) of 2002

and the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) of 2002 has reinforced our long-standing statutory responsibilities for developing federal cyber security standards and guidelines and conducting commensurate security research. We

fully appreciate and are grateful for the trust and support provided by the House

Science Committee to NIST in assigning us responsibility for these critical roles. We

see both of these new important laws as a ‘‘vote of confidence’’ in our past work and

an expectation of continuing successful achievements in the future.

Today I would like to review new statutory assignments to NIST, provide you an

overview of NIST’s cyber security activities, and discuss some of the challenges we

continue to confront.

NIST Responsibilities Under the Cyber Security Research and Development

Act of 2002

Under the legislation, NIST is assigned responsibilities to

• Establish a program of assistance to institutions of higher education that

enter into partnerships with for-profit entities;

• Institute a program to award post-doctoral research fellowships to individuals

seeking cyber security research positions;

• Develop checklists that minimize security risks associated with Federal Government computer hardware or software systems;

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• Ask the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences to

study the vulnerabilities of the Nation’s infrastructure and to make recommendations for appropriate improvements;

• Support and consult with the Information System Security and Privacy Advisory Board, which has the mission to identify emerging issues related to computer security, privacy, and cryptography;

• Conduct intramural cyber security security research; and

• Coordinate with NSF and OSTP on cyber security research.

NIST Responsibilities Under the Federal Information Security Management

Act (FISMA) of 2002

Responsibilities assigned to NIST under FISMA include:

• Developing IT standards for federal systems,

• Conducting research to identify information security vulnerabilities and developing techniques to provide cost-effective security;

• Assessing private-sector policies, practices, and commercially available technologies;

• Assisting the private sector, upon request; and

• Evaluating security policies and practices developed for national security systems to assess potential application for non-national security systems.

FISMA also contained a number of specific assignments, including development

of:

• Standards and guidelines to be used by federal agencies to categorize levels

of information security according risk;

• Minimum information security requirements, such as management, operational, and technical security controls;

• An Incident Handling Guideline and a Guideline to Identifying a System as

a National Security System;

• Security performance indicators; and

• An annual public report of our FISMA activities.

With these broad legislative mandates in mind, let me review NIST’s activities

and accomplishments in the area of intramural research, security grants, and a

planned National Research Council study.

Recent NIST Intramural Cyber Security Accomplishments

In addition to the extraordinary success of the Advanced Encryption Standard,

NIST has made a number of major contributions to cyber security standards and

guidelines, research, and testing in order to thwart the kinds of economically disabling attacks noted previously. Here are but a sampling of numerous successes and

ongoing activities:

Security Guidelines and Standards

Our base program targets the development of standards and guidelines in support

of our federal responsibilities. In 2002–2003, NIST published 12 security guidelines

covering a wide variety of topics such as e-mail, firewalls, telecommuting and business systems contingency planning. We have also published 10 draft guidelines for

review by federal departments and agencies as well as other interested organizations and individuals concerning such topics as certification and accreditation,

awareness and training, and considerations in Federal Information technology procurements. The certification and accreditation guidelines are a key component needed for successful implementation of the e-government and FISMA mandates for federal agencies. Additionally, we have issued numerous NIST Information Technology

Laboratory (ITL) Bulletins during the last year to provide guidance to agencies and

others on a broad list of topics. Our guidelines and standards provide leadership to

industry as much of our work is voluntarily adopted in industry. For example, our

Smart Card Interoperability Specification has been adopted by federal agencies and

is now being considered for adoption by an ANSI Standards committee and eventually as an international standard. All of our work is posted on our Computer Security Resource Center website. Hundreds of thousands of copies of our guidelines

have been downloaded from this online site. For example, over 400,000 copies of our

Contingency Planning Guide for Information Technology have been downloaded

since its publication less than a year ago.

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Security Testing

I mentioned previously the Cryptographic Module Validation Program through

which a number of new algorithms that use the Advanced Encryption Standard are

being tested. The CMVP as it is known is operated in conjunction with the Government of Canada’s Communication Security Establishment. The Cryptographic Module Validation Program has now validated over 500 modules with another 100 or

more expected within the next year. This successful program utilizes private-sector

accredited laboratories to conduct security conformance testing of cryptographic

modules against the cryptographic federal standards NIST develops and maintains.

To give you a sense of the quality improvement that the program achieves, consider

that our statistics from the testing laboratories show that 48 percent of the modules

brought in for voluntary testing had security flaws that were corrected during testing. In other words, without our program, the Federal Government would have had

only a 50/50 chance of buying correctly implemented cryptography!

In addition, in recent years we have worked to develop the ‘‘Common Criteria’’

which can be used to specify security requirements. These requirements are then

used by private-sector laboratories, accredited by NIST, for the voluntary evaluation

of commercial products needed for the protection of government systems and networks. This work is undertaken in cooperation with the Defense Department’s National Security Agency in our National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP).

You may be aware that the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace calls for a review

of the NIAP. We have begun staff discussions with NSA to identify ways we might

improve the process, through research, process changes, and to understand the resources needed for NIAP to fully succeed.

Access Control

One of the basic tenets of IT security is controlling access to vital IT resources—

answering the question, ‘‘who is allowed to do what?’’ A NIST research team created

a new approach to controlling user access, called Role-Based Access Control (RBAC).

What is most striking about RBAC is its rapid evolution from a theoretical model

to commercial implementation and deployment. An independently conducted NISTsponsored economic impact study, estimated that RBAC will soon be used by some

30 million users for access to sensitive information. Further, the study estimated

that RBAC technology will save the U.S. software development industry $671 million, and that NIST was responsible for 44 percent of the savings.

And, there are many, many other activities too numerous to describe here, including significant efforts in the critical areas of the security of systems controlling the

U.S. Critical Infrastructure, mobile device security, network security, and security

awareness. We also need to be aware of specific needs of our federal customers and

work closely with them to achieve our mission. For example, OMB has asked us to

assist in the preparation of E-Authentication technical guidelines in support of the

E-Government initiatives. And, there are related areas of research, such as biometrics (under mandates from the USA Patriot Act) and computer forensics (used

to build evidence for court cases against terrorists) in which NIST is making extraordinary contributions to the Nation’s efforts to secure the critical infrastructure

of the country. So, in addition to our $10M base funding for cyber security, we leverage another $14M to enable the use of technologies that support the Nation’s cyber

infrastructure.

But, even with our very active program and considerable interactions with industry and federal agencies, the list of critical tools still to be developed is daunting.

The need for trustworthy computing systems is a theme we hear from various economic sectors on a daily basis—from financial institutions, from health care professionals, from owners and operators of utility companies—all are in need of mechanisms by which they can be assured that the information they exchange is available,

confidential and that its integrity is assured. And, the complexity of systems is

growing as components become smaller, and systems on a chip become ubiquitous,

some of the biggest challenges are in ensuring the integrity of information as it

flows from component to component within a system. This is a major area of research on our horizon. So, while we move ahead with critical tasks that already are

on our agenda, we will give new activities priority in our base program as resources

are available.

Interaction with Other Federal Government Agencies

We accomplish our mission working side by side with our federal partners. NIST

understands the Committee’s desire for greater interagency coordination and collaboration for successful science and technology initiatives and we have been reaching out to supplement and assist other federal agencies. Our Technology Administration is preparing a Memorandum of Understanding with the Science and TechVerDate 11-MAY-2000 22:12 Oct 04, 2003 Jkt 086992 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 C:\WORKD\FULL03\051403\86992 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
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nology Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) which will be

signed by Under Secretary Bond and DHS Under Secretary McQueary. This MOU

will establish a formal mechanism for NIST to cooperate with DHS in fulfilling their

many homeland security responsibilities including cyber security R&D. The MOU

is being prepared for signature by the two departmental bureaus on May 19. We

have detailed one NIST senior scientist to the DHS S&T Directorate to assist with

standards efforts and to avoid duplication of effort. Also, we have regular interactions with NSF and OSTP, for example in the INFOSEC Research Council (IRC).

The IRC provides a community-wide forum to discuss critical information security

issues, convey the research needs of their respective communities, and describe current research initiatives and proposed courses of action for future research investments. Additionally, we have also invited NSF representatives to meet with our Information System Security and Privacy Advisory Board at its June meeting. We

have had a long and successful relationship with DARPA in a number of research

areas, particularly in areas of networks, biometrics and language recognition technologies.

National Research Council Study of Network Vulnerabilities

As mandated by CSRDA, we are also moving forward with a National Research

Council study to review the vulnerabilities and inter-dependencies in our critical infrastructure networks and identify appropriate research needs and associated resource requirements. Working with our NRC colleagues we have already identified

a study director and are ready to initiate this study.

Cyber Security Research Grants

Now, not all of our work has been accomplished from within the Federal Government. NIST has provided twelve cyber security research grants in the past: one to

the Critical Infrastructure Protection Project; nine under the NIST 2001 Critical Infrastructure Protection Grants Program, and two to the Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection (I3P) at Dartmouth College’s Institute for Security and Technology Studies.

NIST Critical Infrastructure Protection Grants Program

In September 2001, NIST awarded $5M to nine grant recipients under the FY

2001 Critical Infrastructure Protection Grants Program (CIPGP) to improve the

robustness, resilience, and security information in all the critical infrastructures.

Under the competitive grant application process, we received 133 proposals requesting roughly $73M from applicants in both industry and academia. We selected proposals in intrusion detection, telecommunications, wireless security, electric power

infrastructure, and compiler security.

Funded research addresses a variety of topics to include tools and methods for

analyzing security and detecting attacks due to vulnerabilities introduced by merging of data networks (i.e., the Internet) and voice networks (i.e., the public switched

telephone network). Other topics addressed are attack detection for wireless and

converged networks, the development of security controls for protecting the North

American power grid, and methods for evaluating intrusion detection systems.

While results are still preliminary from the Grants program and some projects

will not be completed due to a discontinuation of program funding in FY 2002, we

will still produce important results especially in the wireless area, converged data/

IP networks and security of the electric power infrastructure.

Cyber Security Funding Increases

NIST takes its cyber security responsibilities very seriously and we appreciate

your confidence in our abilities as witnessed by passage of the Cyber Security Research and Development Act and the Federal Information Security Management Act

(FISMA). We also appreciate that in FY 2003 Congress provided $1M in funding for

operation of our Computer Security Expert Assist Team capability, and approximately $2M for wireless security and networks via our Program to Accelerate Critical Information Technologies initiative.

The President’s FY 2004 budget request includes increased funding for two existing NIST program areas related to cyber security research:

Biometrics Standards

The FY 2004 request includes $1M specifically for standards for biometric identification in continuing support of the USA PATRIOT Act to develop a national biometric identification system, using unique physical characteristics such as fingerprints, facial features, and eye patterns, to accurately identify people entering the

United States or applying for visas. With the funding requested, NIST will help to

develop effective, efficient, and interoperable biometric identifier standards, certifiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 22:12 Oct 04, 2003 Jkt 086992 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 C:\WORKD\FULL03\051403\86992 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
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cation tests, guidelines, and techniques for fingerprint and face recognition and

verification.

Quantum Information Systems

The FY 2004 $3M requested for work in quantum information science will also

have significant cyber security benefits. Quantum mechanics, the strange behavior

of matter on the atomic scale, provides an entirely new and uniquely powerful way

for computing and communications, potentially replacing the current binary computing and digital communications based on ones and zeros, and could have enormous impacts in homeland security. Quantum computers could perform processing

tasks that are currently impossible. They also could solve problems that conventional computers could not manage given realistic amounts of time, memory, and

processing power.

This enormous computational power would be particularly valuable in cryptography, making codes that would be unbreakable by the best supercomputers of tomorrow, or breaking codes in seconds that could not be cracked in years by the most

powerful binary computers. Quantum information also can be used for remarkably

secure communications. In this particular area, we are partnering closely with

DARPA.

With the requested funding, NIST will work to develop the measurements and

standards infrastructure (hardware and software) critical to the development of a

quantum communications system. This includes methods to test and verify the actual performance characteristics of these systems, to determine their security properties, and to enable integration of such systems into the existing communications

infrastructure.

In conclusion, NIST takes its role in cyber security seriously and will work with

the Committee to ensure that we are able to carry out our mandate to work with

industry, academia, and standards development organizations to assure the secure

flow of vital and sensitive information throughout our society. These examples of

our work and accomplishments demonstrate NIST’s commitment to cyber security,

across the government and the Nation. They also demonstrate the base upon which

NIST hopes to build our efforts. It is an absolutely critical national need, and it is

fundamental to providing the technical testing, standards and guidelines needed to

protect our information infrastructure.

I am grateful to Chairman Boehlert for holding this hearing, and for his support

of NIST’s programs.

This concludes my prepared remarks.

I will be pleased to answer your questions.

BIOGRAPHY FOR ARDEN L. BEMENT, JR.

Arden L. Bement, Jr., was sworn in as the 12th Director of NIST on Dec. 7, 2001.

Bement oversees an agency with an annual budget of about $812 million and an

on-site research and administrative staff of about 3,000, complemented by a NISTsponsored network of 2,000 locally managed manufacturing and business specialists

serving smaller manufacturers across the United States. Prior to his appointment

as NIST director, Bement served as the David A. Ross Distinguished Professor of

Nuclear Engineering and head of the School of Nuclear Engineering at Purdue University. He has held appointments at Purdue University in the schools of Nuclear

Engineering, Materials Engineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering, as

well as a courtesy appointment in the Krannert School of Management. He was director of the Midwest Superconductivity Consortium and the Consortium for the Intelligent Management of the Electrical Power Grid.

Bement came to his position as NIST director well versed in the workings of the

agency, having previously served as head of the Visiting Committee on Advanced

Technology, the agency’s primary private-sector policy adviser; as head of the advisory committee for NIST’s Advanced Technology Program; and on the Board of

Overseers for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Bement joined the Purdue faculty in 1992 after a 39-year career in industry, government, and academia. These positions included: Vice President of Technical Resources and of Science and Technology for TRW Inc. (1980–1992); Deputy Under

Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (1979–1980); Director, Office of

Materials Science, DARPA (1976–1979); Professor of Nuclear Materials, MIT (1970–

1976); Manager, Fuels and Materials Department and the Metallurgy Research Department, Battelle Northwest Laboratories (1965–1970); and Senior Research Associate, General Electric Co. (1954–1965).

Along with his NIST advisory roles, Bement served as a member of the U.S. National Science Board, the governing board for the National Science Foundation, from

35

1989 to 1995. He also chaired the Commission for Engineering and Technical Studies and the National Materials Advisory Board of the National Research Council;

was a member of the Space Station Utilization Advisory Subcommittee and the

Commercialization and Technology Advisory Committee for NASA; and consulted for

the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory and Idaho Nuclear Energy and Environmental Laboratory.

He has been a director of Keithley Instruments Inc. and the Lord Corp. and was

a member of the Science and Technology Advisory Committee for the Howmet Corp.

(a division of ALCOA).

Bement holds an engineer of metallurgy degree from the Colorado School of

Mines, a Master’s degree in metallurgical engineering from the University of Idaho,

a doctorate degree in metallurgical engineering from the University of Michigan,

and a honorary doctorate degree in engineering from Cleveland State University. He

is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you very much. And thank you for

the kind words about the Committee’s leadership in this area. I

guess the question we have is is there a follower-ship, and we will

address that in the questions.

Dr. Tether, welcome back. And I hope in your testimony you will

enlighten us as to why we are moving in the wrong direction with

respect to funding in DARPA for cyber security or Cyber Trust, as

we now occasionally refer to it.

Dr. TETHER. Thank you very much, Chairman Boehlert, Members of the Committee. I am pleased to be here to discuss our work

in cyber security, which we really refer to as ‘‘information assurance.’’ If you would, please, accept my written testimony for the

record.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Without objection, the entire written statements will appear in the record in their entirety, and we appreciate

the others summarizing, and we would welcome your summary, but

we are not being arbitrary with the five minutes, so don’t get nervous about the green light, red light. It is just to see if we are colorblind.

STATEMENT OF DR. ANTHONY J. TETHER, DIRECTOR,

DEFENSE ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY

Dr. TETHER. As you know, DARPA’s mission is to maintain the

technological superiority of the U.S. military by sponsoring high

payoff research that basically bridges the gap between fundamental

discoveries and the—their military use. The testimony goes into a

little bit more detail of how we go about doing that, so I won’t bother to go into that.

However, all of—DARPA is a very low-overhead organization. I

would say about 98 percent of the money that is appropriated to

us literally goes out to performers, and only about $100 million, or

I will say three billion is really for security, operating the building,

operating DARPA, paying for salaries. All the rest goes out to performers. These performers are mostly industry, but there are universities and also government labs involved. Now in doing that, we

really—we partner with the services quite heavily. In fact, we contract to these performers through service organizations.

A major service organization in this area, information assurance,

is AFRL in Rome, New York, as you know. They are a great partner with us, and probably—and really carry the longevity of the

projects.

36

Basically, we mine the talents and discoveries that are created

by organizations, such as NSF. We collaborate with NSF at the

Program Manager level primarily to make sure that we are aware

of what new is happening. And what we try to do is we try to find

when an idea is ripe to be taken from an idea to an application,

to a product in itself. And that is what we do and that is what

DARPA has done very successfully for nearly 45 years now.

The military, however, is moving to what they are calling ‘‘network centric warfare.’’ And this requires—and this will require that

we seamlessly network the organizations, weapon platforms, people, immediately upon entry into a theater. Now this allows us to

plan and execute operations more quickly and effectively than opponents. We are able to be very agile with this network centric

warfare. And the recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq really

have given you only a hint of the power of the network centric techniques that are coming to our military.

However, while moving to a network centric warfare has created

for us an enormous capability in—capability to handle—be very

agile, it has also created a tremendous vulnerability. Basically, the

network now must achieve the same availability, reliability, et

cetera, that we used to enforce on our platforms, our weapon platforms itself. The network itself now has become the weapon.

Our enemies are watching this, and our enemies know this. So

our enemies are clearly going to go and attack the network in the

future as they have attacked our platforms and so in the past. Because of this, we are working hard on techniques and all to make

sure that these networks can not be attacked because of the—if

they are attacked, the whole—our whole capability goes down. Because of that, this is one of the reasons why our work is becoming

more classified now than it has been in the past, because this—the

network itself is becoming a capability and if the vulnerabilities of

those networks were known, obviously it would be easy for an

enemy to attack them. And if the techniques that we were developing to prevent from attacking them were known, then that is valuable information as well to an aggressor. So that is one of the reasons why you will find that in the future more and more of our

work in this area will, by definition, have to become classified.

Because we are idea or project-oriented in the sense that we

don’t work in general, we take ideas and we create a project, it

sometimes appears that we don’t have a consistent thrust. But

what you see—what I believe you are seeing are just the natural

variations as projects are started and as projects are finished. It is

true that from 2002 to 2004 it looks like our—at least our unclassified budget is decreasing in this area. What you don’t have is the

classified budget, and I would be happy to give that to you in a

closed session. And if you saw that, you would see it probably

wasn’t decreasing that——

Chairman BOEHLERT. I would be a little more comfortable.

Dr. TETHER. Yeah. And most of that, by the way, once again goes

through AFRL in Rome, New York. But for example, as these

projects variations, in the early ’90’s, somebody got an idea, ‘‘Well,

let us not let the attackers in.’’ And the result of that research

were firewalls. And all of the—most of the firewalls that you have

now being used by people came from a DARPA program back in

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the early ’90’s on the techniques to keep—just keep the attackers

from ever getting in. However, it turns out that firewalls have

flaws, and these flaws aren’t necessarily the firewalls, the people

that implement them.

So next we moved to detecting that an attack was going on and

trying to limit the damage. However, in order to do this, we end

up with high false alarm rates or false positives where we say an

attack is going on and an attack really is not going on. So we developed technology to greatly reduce that false alarm rate so that

when an attack—we said an attack was going on, it truly was.

Third, we finally—somebody had an idea that said, ‘‘Look, we

can’t keep them out. We are getting pretty good at detecting these

attacks, but what we really have to do now, because the networks

are becoming, really, the weapon system, is learn how to operate

through the attack.’’ In other words while the attack is ongoing to

be able to still have the network operate, perhaps at a reduced capability, but degrade more gracefully than just falling off the cliff

because there was an attack going on. So we have technology developments going on there.

Some of the projects we have were listed in the testimony: Cyber

Panel, Fault Tolerant Networks, Dynamic Coalitions, OASIS. And

what we are doing is we are taking all of this technology and we

are building a prototype system where we are going to be able to

take our technology and implement it in a prototype network, a

very large network, 400 nodes or so, typical of a military network,

and then attack it and really be able to test our technology. Unfortunately, that will be, obviously, for obvious reasons, classified.

So the last question is: Where are we going and what are our priorities? I believe that you asked that. As I said, we are focused on

the problems that DOD must solve for network centric warfare.

And these include problems not currently faced by the commercial

world. DOD networks are—can be characterized as large, distributed, mobile networks of networks becoming increasingly wireless.

We are facing very sophisticated attackers. I mean, these aren’t

just hackers going and erasing for mischief but really attackers

whose life depends upon taking the network down. These networks

have to assemble and reassemble on-the-fly, and they have to do

this without any fixed infrastructure. In other words, we can’t go

in and put towers up and then have the networks arrive. These

networks have to basically be what is known as a peer-to-peer network where each node in itself becomes the relay for communicating with other people.

We are really far ahead of the commercial world in this regard,

but there is great commercial interest in these DOD networks, especially those that do not require a fixed infrastructure, and the

reasons for that are obvious: cost. If we could have a cellular network that didn’t require the towers where each cell phone itself

was a relay, you obviously have saved a lot of money on building

the towers and also saved a lot of money in trying to get the towers

put up.

Now I know that—again, and I will close with that—you have

been concerned about our level of funding, but let me assure you

that we have, and will continue to have, a very robust program in

information assurance, because we have to. The whole structure of

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the DOD depends upon that. And while we are putting more emphasis on the military’s specific problems, the work we are doing

will have a long-term beneficial impact on the commercial world,

mainly because we are developing all of the capability in industry,

and industry will undoubtedly take that capability and go two ways

with it: one for the military and also one for the commercial world.

And with that, I will be glad to answer any questions you might

have.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Tether follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ANTHONY A. TETHER

Mr. Chairman, Committee Members, and staff: I am Tony Tether, Director of the

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). I am pleased to appear before you today to talk about DARPA’s work to develop secure Defense networks and

how that work relates to the subject of cyber security, or what we call information

assurance. Some of you may not be familiar with DARPA, so let me begin by saying a few

words about who we are and what we do.

Since the time of Sputnik, DARPA has had a special mission within the Department of Defense (DOD): maintain the technological superiority of the U.S. military

and prevent technological surprise from harming our national security. DARPA does

this by sponsoring revolutionary, high-payoff research that bridges the gap between

fundamental discoveries and their military uses.

Let me tell you a little bit about how DARPA works.

Imagine a science and technology (S&T) investment time-line that runs from

‘‘Near’’ to ‘‘Far,’’ indicative of how long it takes for an S&T investment to be incorporated into an acquisition program. On the ‘‘Near side’’ of this timeline we have

a lot of investment that represents most of the work of the Service S&T organizations. This S&T tends to gravitate towards the Near side because the Services emphasize providing technical capabilities critical to the mission requirements of today’s warfighter. This excellent work continuously hones U.S. military capabilities.

However, it is typically focused on known systems and problems.

In contrast, out at the other end of the investment timeline—we’ll call this the

‘‘Far side’’—there is a much smaller investment that represents funding fundamental discoveries, where new science, new ideas, and radical new concepts typically first surface. People working on the Far side have ideas for entirely new types

of devices, or new ways to put together capabilities from different Services in a revolutionary manner. But, the people on the Far side have a difficult, and sometimes

impossible time obtaining funding from the larger, near side investors because of

the near side’s focus on current, known, and pressing problems.

DARPA was created to span the gap between these two groups. DARPA’s mission

is to find the promising ideas (and people) out on the Far side and accelerate those

ideas to the Near side as quickly as possible. DARPA emphasizes what future commanders might want and pursues opportunities for bringing entirely new core capabilities into the Department.

Hence, DARPA mines fundamental discoveries—the Far side—and accelerates

their development and lowers their risks until they prove their promise and can be

adopted by the Services. DARPA’s work is high-payoff precisely because it fills the

gap between fundamental discoveries and their military use.

What is surprising to many people, but entirely in-line with DARPA’s mission, is

that only about five percent of DARPA’s research is basic research. Basic research,

much of that ‘‘Far side’’ investment, is primarily supported by organizations like the

Office of Naval Research (ONR), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Department of Energy (DOE).

Basic research creates new knowledge and technical capacity, whereas DARPA

creates new capabilities for national security by accelerating that knowledge and capacity into use. So we count on institutions like ONR, NSF, NIH, and DOE to provide us with a feedstock of revolutionary technical concepts that we, at DARPA, can

then develop and turn into revolutionary Defense capabilities.

Through the years, DARPA has refocused its work in response to evolving national security threats and technological opportunities, and DARPA’s Strategic Plan

describes how we are pursuing our mission today. One of our eight strategic thrusts

is Robust, Self-Forming Networks, which contains our work in information assurance.

Let me briefly describe it to you:

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DARPA’s Strategic Thrust in Robust, Self-Forming Networks

The Department of Defense is in the middle of a transformation to what is often

termed ‘‘network centric warfare.’’ In simplest terms, network centric warfare is

when military organizations and systems are seamlessly networked to change the

terms of any conflict to favor U.S. and coalition forces. It will allow the United

States and our allies to go beyond a simple correlation of local forces by providing

them better information and letting them plan and coordinate attacks far more

quickly and effectively than our adversaries can.

However, at the heart of this concept are survivable, assured, spectrum-agile communications at both the strategic and tactical levels. The goal of this work is a high

capacity network that degrades softly under attack, while always providing a critical

level of service.

To support this vision, DARPA is conducting research in areas that include: (1)

self-forming ad hoc networks; (2) high capacity, multiband, multimode communications systems; (3) ultra-wideband communications; (4) spectrum sharing; (5) low

probability of detection/intercept/exploitation communications; and, (6) information

assurance or cyber security.

I could spend pages describing our efforts in the first five areas. However, our

focus today is cyber security, so let me turn to what we are doing to ensure that

those military networks are secure and reliable.

DARPA’s Information Assurance Research

What we at DARPA call ‘‘information assurance’’ (often referred to as ‘‘cyber security’’) is crucial to having the robust, self-forming networks required to successfully

conduct network centric warfare. One must look no further than the ongoing Iraq

War to see that the United States has been moving toward network-centric warfare.

While people can debate the extent to which we have achieved network centric

warfare, today’s U.S. military forces are unmistakably network-dependent. Therefore, the very first thing that a sensible adversary would do to asymmetrically negate the U.S. force is take down our military networks. For quite some time, we

have faced the very difficult problem of figuring out how to protect our military networks.

DARPA has had information assurance work going on in some form and by some

name for decades. But, in the early 1990s we started to concentrate in earnest on

the problem of information assurance, with the usual DARPA focus on solving extremely hard problems. Initially, our emphasis was to secure hardwired computer

networks. DARPA’s approach to solving the problem of information assurance

evolved, over time, to a layered approach.

The first layer that we worked on in the early 1990’s was preventing, or ‘‘locking

out’’ cyber attacks. This resulted in the ‘‘firewalls’’ that are commonly available in

the commercial world today.

In fact, today’s commonly available commercial firewalls started with a DARPA

project to protect the World Wide Web at the White House. The DARPA contractor

that did this work published the firewall source code in the open literature, and

from that work grew over a hundred firewall companies and an entire market for

firewall products.

The second layer in DARPA’s approach to information assurance has been detecting attacks and limiting their damage. In addition to intrusion detection, DARPA

has more recently demonstrated both hundred-fold reduction in the false alarm

rates that plague current intrusion detection systems, and the ability to detect new

and novel forms of attack through anomaly based detection. Over the last two years,

DARPA has demonstrated such detection capabilities in the field in major exercises

such as the Navy Fleet Battle Experiment series.

A third pursuit, and one that DARPA has been increasingly emphasizing, is developing the ability to operate through cyber attacks. The simple logic here is that we

simply cannot block all attacks, nor can we completely limit the damage from attacks. So we have to be able to continue operating while an attack is underway, in

spite of the damage that the attack may inflict.

Let me give you a flavor of where we are today in some of the information assurance programs that we are working on at DARPA right now:

• The Cyber Panel program is working on ways to detect new attacks in realtime, including previously unknown attacks, predict what damage the attacks

will inflict, and implement effective defenses.

• The Fault Tolerant Networks program is working on ways to ensure that

a network remains available, even during an attack, while restricting the network resources available to the attacker. In fact, this program has resulted

40

in a commercial product, PeakflowΤΜ, that is being used to protect against

Distributed Denial of Service attacks.

• The Dynamic Coalitions program is working on methods to quickly set up

secure networks—a critical problem for today’s U.S. fighting forces. Some of

this technology is being used in the joint DARPA–Army Future Combat Systems program, a program that has network centric warfare as a starting assumption.

• The Organically Assured and Survivable Information Systems (OASIS)

program is working to provide a ‘‘last line of defense’’ by developing ways to

enable critical DOD computers (as distinct from the network level) to operate

through a cyber attack, degrade gracefully if necessary, and allow real-time,

controlled trade-offs between system performance and system security

through such techniques as redundancy and diversity of operating systems.

A prototype military system to produce Air Tasking Orders for the U.S. Air Force

is also being developed. The system, and the underlying information assurance technology, will be tested in 2004 by subjecting it to a sustained cyber attack from a

‘‘red team.’’

Much of what we have done, particularly for wired systems, has proved useful in

both commercial and military systems. But, our focus is the specific problems DOD

needs solved for network centric warfare.

The military-specific problems that we are working on go beyond those faced by

the commercial world today. Military networks, more than commercial networks, involve large-scale, highly distributed, mobile networks-of-networks that are increasingly wireless, deal with time-critical problems, and face potential attackers who are

extremely dedicated and sophisticated. Failure in military networks has extreme

consequences.

Moreover, network centric warfare involves networks that must assemble and reassemble on-the-fly on an ad hoc basis without having a fixed or set infrastructure

in-place. In effect, we must achieve what has been called, ‘‘critical infrastructure

protection’’ without infrastructure.

In the most advanced cases, these are peer-to-peer or ‘‘infrastructure less’’ networks. There is no fixed, in-place network equipment—the whole network architecture is fluid and reassembles dynamically. It could be that, in the long-term, commercial networks will acquire some of these features, but, for now the Department

of Defense is in the lead in facing these problems.

DARPA is taking a broad-based view of information assurance. When we think

about information assurance, we include technology such as communications security and encryption as part of our solution. The threat to military networks is not

simply hackers, but organized and well resourced nation states that want to eavesdrop on military network traffic, or interfere with it at precisely the wrong time.

In fact, information assurance in a world of growing network centric warfare must

become a regular feature of most military programs—in the same sense that everyone building an airplane must consider materials, not only material scientists.

A significant and growing element of DARPA’s work in information assurance is

classified, and cannot be discussed in this forum. The future thrust is for more of

these efforts to become classified. Why? Because of our increasing dependence on

networks, their vulnerabilities and techniques for protecting them become more and

more sensitive. Accordingly, our efforts have become classified.

In the longer-term, I expect that DARPA’s strategic thrust in Cognitive Computing could also lead to important contributions to information assurance. While

I cannot discuss it at length today, our Cognitive Computing thrust aimed at developing computers and networks that are ‘‘self-aware’’—that is, computers that actually know what they’re doing and know what is happening to them.

Future network-centric warfare systems will be able to leverage ‘‘self-aware’’ capabilities to determine when they are under attack and autonomically respond, and

reconfigure themselves in much the same way as the human body reacts to an infection. If such systems could be built, they should be able to do a much better job

of protecting themselves because they will understand that they’re being attacked.

I realize that there has been some concern about DARPA’s level of funding in the

area of information assurance. For example, some have expressed the opinion that

our budget for this effort is dropping drastically.

Let me reassure you that we have a robust program in information assurance,

and we plan to continue this robust program in the coming years. There are natural

variations in our budget, and they are due to several factors such as when large

programs like Fault Tolerant Networks and OASIS come to an end.

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The budget structure does not always capture the great variety of information assurance work going on, particularly when it is an integral part of another program,

as it is in Future Combat Systems. And, there are the aforementioned classified programs that obscure the budget picture.

Thus, while we are putting more emphasis on military-specific problems, we will

continue to have a robust program that will, in the long-term, have a broad, beneficial impact on the commercial world.

Finally, I understand that a particular interest of the Committee is how we coordinate and disseminate the results of our research to other federal agencies and

to the commercial world.

Much of our interaction with industry stems from using companies as performers

of our research, and the strong desire of smaller commercial firms to commercialize

their technology. For instance, in 1999 DARPA foresaw the threat of Distributed Denial of Service that hit Yahoo and e-Bay a few years later, and invested accordingly

to create the Fault Tolerant Networks program. Today, the nascent market for solutions against this threat consists primarily of technologies that have their roots in

DARPA research, technology that can protect the military, like the example I mentioned earlier.

DARPA also makes efforts to broadly communicate our results in a more structured way by sponsoring the DARPA Information Survivability Conference and Exposition (DISCEX) conferences. The audience at DISCEX is very broad, and it includes the extended research community, the operational military, developers of

military systems, and the commercial industry that generates the ‘‘off the shelf’’ systems that comprise most military information systems.

Our goal in these meetings is to stimulate scientists, developers, and joint operational customers with research products, experimental results, and capabilities

emerging from DARPA research to better address the military’s needs for information security. The most recent conference included over 250 attendees with 60 researchers giving technology demonstrations and produced two volumes of technical

proceedings.

In addition, while many ideas on information assurance are being exchanged informally through the professional relationships between researchers and the U.S.

Government officials who sponsor their work, DARPA is the primary sponsor of the

Infosec Research Council (IRC), an informal coordinating body begun in 1996 that

is comprised of U.S. Government members concerned with funding and conducting

research in information security/information assurance/cyber security. The IRC

members include DARPA, the National Security Agency, the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Department of Energy, and the Federal Aviation Administration.

I should also mention the collaborations and consultations between NSF and

DARPA personnel. This interaction goes beyond the simple exchange of technical information that typically characterizes interagency information exchange programs.

DARPA and NSF personnel for example co-fund particular projects where a true

synergistic opportunity exists. NSF’s program, ‘‘Ultra-High-Capacity Optical Communications: Challenges in Broadband Optical Access, Materials Processing, and

Manufacturing’’ has direct participation by DARPA personnel and a modest level of

DARPA funding. NSF personnel likewise take part in DARPA source selection panels where similar technical interests can be found.

NSF’s ‘‘Networking Research Testbeds Program’’ is of special interest to DARPA

in that it offers the possibility of making available world-class network testbeds to

DOD contractors and personnel. Network testbed collaboration meetings are now

routinely held by DARPA and NSF program managers, and I expect that these

testbeds will be very useful as we explore alternative architectures, systems and

protocols for future optical networks; wireless networks based on spectrum sharing;

distributed sensor networks; and networking in highly dynamic and/or harsh environments. We have also been having discussions with NSF personnel about our

thrust in Cognitive Computing.

The Department of Defense is steadily increasing its dependence on information

systems that are crucial to our future vision of network centric warfare. I hope my

remarks today have given you a sense of what DARPA is doing to ensure that those

networks perform reliably and that they remain secure.

I would be happy to answer your questions.

BIOGRAPHY FOR ANTHONY J. TETHER

Dr. Anthony J. Tether was appointed as Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on June 18, 2001. DARPA is the principal Agency

within the Department of Defense for research, development, and demonstration of

42

concepts, devices, and systems that provide highly advanced military capabilities. As

Director, Dr. Tether is responsible for management of the Agency’s projects for highpayoff, innovative research and development.

Until his appointment as Director, DARPA, Dr. Tether held the position of Chief

Executive Officer and President of The Sequoia Group, which he founded in 1996.

The Sequoia Group provided program management and strategy development services to government and industry. From 1994 to 1996, Dr. Tether served as Chief

Executive Officer for Dynamics Technology Inc. From 1992 to 1994, he was Vice

President of Science Applications International Corporation’s (SAIC) Advanced

Technology Sector, and then Vice President and General Manager for Range Systems at SAIC. Prior to this, he spent six years as Vice President for Technology and

Advanced Development at Ford Aerospace Corp., which was acquired by Loral Corporation during that period. He has also held positions in the Department of Defense, serving as Director of DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office in 1982 through

1986, and as Director of the National Intelligence Office in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 1978 to 1982. Prior to entering government service, he served

as Executive Vice President of Systems Control Inc. from 1969 to 1978, where he

applied estimation and control theory to military and commercial problems with

particular concentration on development and specification of algorithms to perform

real-time resource allocation and control.

Dr. Tether has served on Army and Defense Science Boards and on the Office of

National Drug Control Policy Research and Development Committee. He is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and is listed in

several Who’s Who publications. In 1986, he was honored with both the National

Intelligence Medal and the Department of Defense Civilian Meritorious Service

Medal.

Dr. Tether received his Bachelor’s of Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1964, and his Master of Science (1965) and Ph.D. (1969) in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

DISCUSSION

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you very much. Thank all of you.

Which one of you is the lead agency in cyber security? Tell me

what that means being the lead agency.

Dr. COLWELL. As the lead agency in cyber security, we, particularly in the area of research, work together with the other agencies

to coordinate the focus of the research and to ensure that there is

integration of the research effort, non-duplication, and there is enhancement in access, particularly the role of NSF, access to outstanding science to the other agencies. And we——

Chairman BOEHLERT. So that is sort of an interagency coordinating committee? Is that——

Dr. COLWELL. Yes, we have a working group, the NITRD Working Group, the Networking and Information Working Group that is

chaired by Peter Freeman. We also have another—we have other

information technology coordinating groups, and we work together

in ensuring that we know what the other is doing, particularly

strong with NIST, because NIST acts as the standards——

Chairman BOEHLERT. But am I—are we to assume that your coordinating group, for example, as Dr. Tether pointed out to us that

increasingly a higher percentage of their work is in a classified

arena, do we assume that all of the members of the coordinating

group or Working Group have the necessary security clearance in

order to deal in the responsible way that that work that DARPA

is doing and—in the black area and that you can factor that in as

you determine the direction you are going——

Dr. COLWELL. Yes.

Chairman BOEHLERT [continuing]. For the government?

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Dr. COLWELL. Yes, as a matter of fact, that is the case. And we

have detailed to Dr. McQueary’s—an NSF individual, who has been

cleared and who is working to connect to agencies and to provide,

initially, the capability for cyber security within Homeland Security.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Well, I hope you all can comfort me and

the Members of the Committee, so if you know the answer, I would

like, but I am not sure it is the answer that you can feel comfortable in giving me. But are each of you convinced that in your

agency and within the government we are giving sufficient priority

to the needs of cyber security? We will start with you, Dr.

McQueary.

Dr. MCQUEARY. If you ask are we giving sufficient priority, today

the answer is probably no, but I do believe that we have a plan in

place to be implemented quickly that will put the proper emphasis

on it. And that major emphasis from a Department of Homeland

Security standpoint, will come from the Information Analysis and

Infrastructure Protection Directorate, and the Science and Technology Directorate will be actively working with them to—from the

scientific and technological aspect of it.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Dr. Colwell, I think you have already really answered that question.

Dr. COLWELL. Yes. I would say that I agree with Dr. McQueary.

We—as a Nation, we are not focusing sufficiently on this very real

threat. I have just come back last night from a meeting in London

of the science—my counterparts in the science agencies. It is an

international problem. And we also need to understand that we are

increasingly being cyber security attacked from outside the country

as well as hackers within. And I think we are beginning to understand how serious this problem is that we haven’t really gotten to

where we should be, in my opinion.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Dr. Bement.

Dr. BEMENT. This requires a very comprehensive approach.

Through our work, we have worked not only with industry but academia and also international bodies and also all of the federal

interagency coordinating boards and councils to improve the information technology R&D working group, which up until recently

was chaired by a person from NIST, Cita Furlani, who is now our

CIO. We have a pretty good fix on where the vulnerabilities are.

I think we have done enough workshops with industry and different industrial sectors that we know where many of the

vulnerabilities are in some of their control networks and in information systems. And you are right. This is going to require a much

higher level of effort than we have currently engaged in, and it is

going to have to come fairly soon if we are going to meet some of

the vulnerabilities that currently exist.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Dr. Tether.

Dr. TETHER. Given that we are idea oriented and project oriented, I—we are not lacking for funds. We are, perhaps, lacking for

ideas. And what you see happening right now is—and one of the

reasons why the budget is coming down is that current programs

are ending very successfully. But on the other hand, we don’t really

have the number of ideas in this area to solve the problem that the

DOD faces. I have funded every idea that has come forth in this

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area over the last year, including building the infrastructure to

allow people to have a test bed and a lot of other things. So we are

more idea limited right now than we are funding limited. Now that

is why we spent a lot of time dealing—collaborating with organizations like NIST and NSF, and we will with Chuck as soon as we

figure out where—what his address is.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Well, in all fairness to DHS, I mean, they

just stood up, what, 1 March, and they have got a monumental

task, but——

Dr. TETHER. But we will do that, and in fact, in this case, he has

got quite a few DARPA people there, so the—you know, the relationship between the two organizations is very good from the start.

But we are constantly searching for ideas. And right now, this is

a very tough problem. And from the DOD viewpoint, we can’t fail.

I—see, we are not as concerned—we are not concerning ourselves,

and that may be discomforting to you, on the commercial networks.

Hopefully somebody is doing that. We believe our technology will

apply, but if we don’t solve this problem of making these networks

reliable and available through attacks, the whole military structure

that we are building in the future is at stake. And so we really

can’t fail in this area. And I hope that answers your question.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Yeah, it does. And if I were to summarize,

I would think I would summarize in this way, that you all feel that

we are not giving sufficient priority now, but we are moving in that

direction. And we need to give it the highest of priority.

Dr. TETHER. Oh, it has to be the highest priority.

Chairman BOEHLERT. And I see all heads nodding yes, for the

record. Thank you very much. My time is expired. Mr. Miller.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you. Dr. McQueary, the realization that you

were no longer my constituent diminishes only slightly the pride

that I feel that you were in—being in the position that you are in.

And I know that the people in Greensboro feel a great deal of pride

as well.

Dr. MCQUEARY. Thank you.

Mr. MILLER. And your resume does seem to be exactly what we

need for your position. You have the technical expertise, and you

supervise people with similar expertise. But I am wondering to

whom you speak within the Executive Branch. When you are preparing a budget, who do you present it to at OMB? What is their

background? What is their level of expertise? What is the highest

level person in OMB who really deals only with cyber security?

Dr. MCQUEARY. I don’t know—personally know the answer to

that question because I haven’t engaged anyone in a discussion directly in that area. I am sure I have got someone behind me who

can answer the questions. If you would like me to ask them, I

would be happy to do so.

Mr. MILLER. Okay.

Dr. MCQUEARY. I am told Steve McMillin is the name of the individual that we deal with, and he, of course, works for Mark

Forman in OMB.

Mr. MILLER. And do you know what Mr. McMillin’s title is?

Dr. MCQUEARY. No, I don’t. He has the homeland security responsibility and R&D, I am told.

45

Mr. MILLER. Okay. I think it was just in April that Richard

Clarke, who had been at the White House and involved in cyber

security, said that the answer to the question who is the highest

ranking person at OMB who works just on cyber security was pretty frightening. Is that still the case? Is it still a fairly low-level person or is it something that does get attention at what appears to

be the appropriate levels of OMB with someone with that expertise?

Dr. MCQUEARY. I do not know the answer to the question, sir.

Mr. MILLER. Okay. A second question, it certainly appears that

if—in—within the private sector that if one industry’s, one company’s cyber security was insufficient, if it suffered an attack, there

would likely be a ripple of economic loss, a disruption to others that

that business deals with. Is that generally correct?

Dr. MCQUEARY. I would say that would certainly gain a lot of attention. And I think—if I could just inject, I think it is very important that private industry play a key role in this whole issue of

cyber security, because it would be—since some 85 percent of the

industry is privately—what we have in this infrastructure in the

country is privately held and therefore private industry has to have

a strong interest in helping determine what kind of cyber security

protection we must have. In fact, any CEO of a company has a responsibility to his or her shareholders to be concerned about such

an issue would be my view.

Mr. MILLER. Okay. Or a little concerned not just about their—

maybe to their shareholders, because their duty to their shareholders is just to be profitable, but the duty to the people with

whom they do business. I know that the Administration’s—or I understand the Administration’s approach has been not to require by

regulation cyber security standards but that the Department promulgates best practices and methodologies——

Dr. MCQUEARY. Um-hum.

Mr. MILLER [continuing]. And that that would be advice—encouragement to the private sector to adopt the appropriate level of precautions. Is that generally the approach, not require by regulation

but promulgate best practices and methodologies?

Dr. MCQUEARY. If you would let me defer that question to one

of my peers, who are more knowledgeable about it, I would certainly appreciate it, because I simply have not engaged myself in

the short time I have been in this job and the subject to be able

to speak adequately to it.

Mr. MILLER. Does anyone on the panel—yes, sir.

Dr. BEMENT. We regularly hold workshops with industry to try

to understand their vulnerabilities. In fact, it has been major activities of ours over the last two or three years since 9/11. And in

addressing that, we had been working with the standard development organizations to not only develop standards but also we have

been working to develop prototypes to understand better what

those vulnerabilities are along with test beds. In order to accelerate

standards developments, we are working with the Department of

Homeland Security. We have detailed one of our senior scientists,

who heads up the standards activities within Dr. McQueary’s organization. And we have also detailed another person, who is an expert in cyber security. And in addition to that, we have one of our

46

senior people working with ANSI in what is now called the Homeland Security Standards Panel, which is working with the standard

development organizations to try and fast track new standards to

bring new products in the marketplace that will meet the reliability and the security requirements that will meet the needs of

industry in this area. So it is almost a full court press at the

present time.

Chairman BOEHLERT. All right. The gentleman’s time has expired. I know he has, as we all do, more questions. So we will have

a second round of questioning. We will go now to the distinguished

Chairman of the Subcommittee on Research, Mr. Smith of Michigan.

Mr. SMITH OF MICHIGAN. Thanks for an exceptional, qualified

panel to help us decide where we should go on encouraging the directions that we think we should go to protect ourselves. It seems

to me—help me understand a little bit in terms of the technology.

It would seem like it is almost a weapon system. If you develop a

better weapon system and then the other side develops a better

weapon system, and it keeps building up from firewalls to mitigating attacks to how to operate even if the attacks are there, like

you suggested, Dr. Tether. But following up a little bit on Mr. Bell’s

comment and Dr. McQueary’s suggestion that, look, the private sector on how we use computers and software to decide how our food

is going to be shipped where so it gets where it belongs to how we

transmit electricity to how we run our airlines, how do you decide

the balance, Dr. Tether, in protecting the kind of classified research

that is going to enable our Defense Department to communicate

and do things without intervention with the need to use some of

that research in the private sector?

Dr. TETHER. Well, we have a—logistics is a good example of what

you are talking about, which is very close to—you know, most of

the Department of Defense is moving supplies. And there is a logistics organization called Transcom, which happens to be located in

Illinois. We are developing for them a technique which will allow

them to basically be able to go into the distributed databases to

find out where supplies are and then create all of the transportation required to get those supplies to the place they are needed.

And we are concerned about, once you have distributed databases,

of somebody getting into that distributed database and not—either

not allowing you to do it or changing the data. So it is a very crucial thing for the Department of Defense to have this be secure and

assured.

Mr. SMITH OF MICHIGAN. But still, my—both my points, the more

that you accommodate the need to protect in the private sector, the

more vulnerable you are to discovering some of the vulnerabilities

of that system after you—because it is more available.

Dr. TETHER. That is correct. And in this particular case, the technology that is being used is what we happen to call ‘‘intelligent

agents’’. These are little software modules that effectively—think of

it as a—really as an agent that goes out and looks for you and

brings you back answers.

Now this is working very well. We have made it very secure. We

have shown that—doing it this way, that we can, with high confidence, know that the data is not being corrupted, and that the

47

system can operate through an attack. The details of how we do it,

in the military, are classified. However, the technology of intelligent agents, distributed intelligent agents working together to do

this, is unclassified. And again, we are developing this technology

with a company. And this company sees a business in it, not only

for supplying the military with this capability, but also supplying

private industry. Ford Motor Company has the same problem. I

mean, they buy parts all around the world, and they basically have

a logistics problem. How do they get parts here and there? And

they are very interested in making sure that their databases are

secure and that somebody doesn’t get in.

So here is a company that will take the technology that was developed by the military, which will remain classified in the terms—

in the context of the details, but is able to use that technology for

a commercial application. I hope I am answering your question.

Mr. SMITH OF MICHIGAN. Yeah, you are, certainly.

Dr. TETHER. Okay.

Mr. SMITH OF MICHIGAN. My next question, Dr. Colwell. Anyway,

good to see you. In terms of virtual centers compared to bricks and

mortar centers, in our—in this Act, in our Cyber Security Research

and Development Act, we put in language that would be directing

the National Science Foundation to develop physical centers. And

we put in similar language, so it is a two-fold question in the area

of interest that I have expressed many times, is the biological centers that we asked for in our NSF authorization bill. And it seems

in both cases you have tended to lean toward virtual centers rather

than following what I consider the intent of both bills in terms of

developing real centers.

Dr. COLWELL. Actually, we have physical sites that are connected. The approach that we take, and we feel is very powerful,

is to bring the versatility and the diversity of capability that is located in different parts of a given region and to link them, even

though they represent physical sites, to link them by the capacity

of a cyber infrastructure. That means that you have, for example,

the—at—in Missouri, Indiana, Illinois, and Washington State, you

have different capabilities, but when brought together, it becomes

a very powerful approach to addressing sequencing and getting it

done rapidly and effectively. And I think similarly, what we are

trying to do here, and actually it is in response, I think, to an interest of the Chairman, is to bring together, as fast as we can, the

capability that is there, strengthen it, and at the same time, determine how we build further capacity through specific programs.

And I would like to address the comment about ideas. NSF is focusing research on embedded systems, like those that are used to

control the Nation’s power grids. And we are also looking at the

interplay between the human and the computer to better understand human behavior and the use of computers and then future

generations of systems that would be beyond the currently used

systems. And I must tell you that there is an enormous interest in

the community, because we have many, many more proposals than

we can possibly fund. And these are good ideas. These are very

good ideas, and they need to be pursued.

And then one very brief sideline, Congressman Smith, because I

know of your interest in this, the British are very—how should I

48

say? They are understanding that they have got to get beyond this

genetically modified food situation, and they are pushing really

hard to get the acceptance——

Mr. SMITH OF MICHIGAN. I think you might be talking to the scientists rather than the traders.

Dr. COLWELL. These were folks that——

Mr. SMITH OF MICHIGAN. Oh, these are policy issues.

Dr. COLWELL [continuing]. Are policy folks. These are policy

folks.

Mr. SMITH OF MICHIGAN. Mr. Chairman, thank you. But you

know, both in the centers that we call for and the computer network security research centers in this cyber security bill, the advantages of the interdisciplinary individuals being able to talk to

each other and feel each other out seems to me that it has a great

advantage over virtual centers where you are simply putting out

grants. And I yield back my time.

Chairman BOEHLERT. The gentleman’s time is expired. Mr.

Davis.

Mr. DAVIS. I yield two minutes of my time to Mr. Miller.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Mr. Miller is recognized for two minutes.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Davis. Dr. Bement, just a couple

more questions. Essentially, the same question I asked of Dr.

McQueary, has there been an assessment within the private sector

of whether vulnerability to one entity within the private sector

does have ripple effects if it causes—obviously it can cause, as Dr.

McQueary points out, huge economic disruption and vulnerability

to that entity. But does——

Dr. BEMENT. Yes.

Mr. MILLER [continuing]. It have a ripple effect? Does it cause—

is there—would there be an expectation when this assessment of

what effect it may have on others and—in—within the private sector?

Dr. BEMENT. Yes, there have been those vulnerability assessments, and let me just cite three examples. All of you know what

the impact was of the strike out on the West Coast and how that

tied up supply chains throughout the country and how that rippled

through our economy. So our transportation systems are all interconnected and all—interconnected in terms of their vulnerabilities,

and that would be a major backup. Also, with regard to our manufacturing enterprises because there is a supply chain linkage. And

many of these enterprises are global in nature and depend on,

again, the global supply of parts and so forth. Any disruption, especially across our borders, and especially in the Great Lakes Area

with Canada and south with Mexico, that would also have a ripple

effect as far as our whole logistics trains throughout the supply

chain.

The other part that I would also cite is the vulnerability of our

electric power grid. I might mention parenthetically that before I

came to NIST, I was at Purdue University and using intelligent

agents in a project co-sponsored by the Department of Defense to

use intelligent agents to come up with more robust control systems

to deal with upset conditions in our electric power grid. But that

would also have a ripple effect, because the loss of a shunt or the

loss of a major element, critical element in the electric power grid

49

could, of course, be propagated across the country. So that would

have major implications. And one of the vulnerable components

there is the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System, or

the SCADA control system, which do have to be made secure. And

NIST has been working with the industry. We have been giving

grants in this area to figure out how we can deal with the security

aspects of information flows that control these SCADA control networks, some of which now operate on the Internet. So you know,

this is a new development in recent years using the Internet to

control operations across the country.

Chairman BOEHLERT. The gentleman’s time has expired. Mr.

Davis, you can reclaim your time, but just let me observe that what

George Carlin might refer to as the stuff of comic book lore is now

a reality. I mean, we have to redefine what war is. It is very possible that the next war would not be fought with guns and bullets

but with computers and—from afar. They don’t even have to leave

their point of origin. A nation could effectively wage war on another nation. That might not be as devastating in terms of loss of

life, obviously, but the losses would be just monumental. And it is

the—that is why, I mean, this committee is so concerned about

cyber security and we are so avid in our pursuit of attention for

this subject and trying to get people to realize what you have all

acknowledged. But too many people are much too casual about it.

Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, thank you. And I do reclaim the remainder of my time. I have basically one question. It will have a

two-part to it. Many of the questions I have would have been asked

and perhaps would have been asked by many, such as Mr. Miller

and others, but the President, our Administration basically has described our national strategy for—to secure cyberspace is through

the Office of Science and Technology Policy, which is referred to as

OSTP, which basically will be coordinating, supposedly, and every

year will be—each of your entities will be coordinating, bringing together information starting with fiscal year 2004. As I hear each

of you giving testimony, Dr. McQueary and Dr. Tether basically

mentioned the INFOSEC Research Council. Dr. Colwell, you made

reference to the network and—Networking and Information Technology Research Development Interagency Working Groups. Now

as I listened to each of those, I assume that perhaps each one that

is providing research development is somewhere assimilating the

information and then you get together with someone as you discuss

what you are doing, what your research and development is providing. Are you finding working with the Office of Science and

Technology Policy is—are you able to effectively work there? Are

you coordinating your information together or do you find that you

are basically out on your own on an island?

Dr. COLWELL. No, we are coordinating. In fact, we have had discussions, particularly on computing research, and especially effective is the—putting together the budget requests, making sure that

it is coordinated, because the—I mean, I can not speak for the

Science—the Director of OSTP except for my interactions and say

that this is a major interest and concern of OSTP and making sure

that all of the agencies are doing a coordinated effort toward solving the problem. Yes, I see that happening.

50

Mr. DAVIS. And that is happening, and you are happy with the

coordination of it and with getting results?

Dr. COLWELL. Well, I have to, again, just as we all four of us

have said, that even though we had a Cyber Trust program started

September 6, before 9/11, and have gone—our work goes back to

1978, it is only in the last—I would say the last year or so that

this intensive understanding of the disasters that hacking into systems creates that we now are putting a very strong attention to

this.

Mr. DAVIS. Is there a plan in place, step-by-step how this is going

to happen? And are you also working with private industry to gather information?

Dr. COLWELL. Yeah, the—we are developing a plan, and I think

probably Dr. Bement can speak more conversantly with private industry, but we, too, work with industry in our centers, our science

and technology centers, our engineering research centers, and certainly in developing a center approach for cyber security.

Mr. DAVIS. So there is not a plan currently step-by-step that is

being developed?

Dr. COLWELL. Being developed.

Mr. DAVIS. I certainly hope it occurs pretty quickly. Dr. Bement.

Dr. BEMENT. Of course, one of NIST’s responsibilities is look—is

to look after the security of our federal agencies as far as sensitive

information flows. And that work is coordinated through any number of councils: the CIO Council, the PITAC, the PCAST, the

INFOSEC Research Council that has been mentioned. There is a

federal security program managers’ forum. And we take that information and we pull it together to develop our program and to establish our priorities. But within each one of these bodies, there

are plans that, in many cases, tie back to the Office of Management

and Budget, which links to the President’s cyber security plan, so

that—there has been a lot of planning being done. We are doing

a lot within NIST. We are doing a lot of it interactively with the

organizations that are represented here along with NSA and other

agencies. And we look pretty much to OSTP for the coordination of

the research and development program within the federal agencies

through their information technology R&D working group.

Dr. COLWELL. I would like to, if I may, provide a reassurance in

the fact that what you don’t see, what isn’t obvious, is that there

is strong collaboration and cooperation. As I have said earlier, we

have detailed one of our very good people to Homeland Security to

help get that started up. We have been working with the intelligence agencies, the Defense agency and DARPA and with our scientist panels inviting scientists from those agencies to sit in on the

NSF panels. And then where there is interest in the research that

is being proposed and discussed, they can add funds to it and make

sure that it gets enhanced. So we are doing quite a lot of what

would be not openly and clearly visible. But there is a great deal

of interaction.

Mr. DAVIS. What my hope would be, obviously, is that each different entity that is doing research and development would be able

to follow a plan that would provide the information. And I am not

sure that—I don’t sense that that is happening today, so my hopes

51

are that from this hearing that there will be efforts to encourage

such action to be taken.

Chairman BOEHLERT. The gentleman’s time is expired. The

Chair recognizes the distinguished Chairman of the Subcommittee

on Environment, Technology and Standards, Dr. Ehlers.

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. First of all, I have been

struck with all of the work that is going on in cyber security, and

it sounds like very good work, what we may call ‘‘cyber defense

against enemies foreign and domestic.’’ Dr. Tether, what do you

have going on in the what you might call ‘‘cyber offense,’’ in other

words cyber warfare? What—do you have programs within Defense

dealing with how you would attack enemies——

Dr. TETHER. Yes, we do. And unfortunately, I probably can’t say

much more than yes we do.

Mr. EHLERS. All right.

Dr. TETHER. But I would be happy to come and tell you about

it, I just——

Mr. EHLERS. Yeah. I——

Dr. TETHER [continuing]. Can’t here. It is——

Mr. EHLERS. There may be several of us who would like to do

that at some point.

Dr. TETHER. Okay. That would be fine.

Mr. EHLERS. I also was struck by, and I am paraphrasing what

you said, I hope correctly, that Dr. Tether, that you said you are

looking for a lot of good ideas that you can try and implement. Dr.

Colwell, you were saying you have a lot of ideas but no money to

do it. I would suggest the two of you get together afterwards.

Dr. TETHER. Well, we do. In fact, as Dr. Colwell said, there is an

enormous amount of collaboration going on——

Mr. EHLERS. Right.

Dr. TETHER [continuing]. At the—what I would—we would call at

DARPA the Program Manager level. In fact, when this hearing was

called, I asked, I said, ‘‘How much’’—‘‘What is going on between us

and NSF?’’ And I was amazed at how much was going on that I

didn’t know about.

Mr. EHLERS. I realize that. Dr. Bement.

Dr. BEMENT. Yes.

Mr. EHLERS. First of all, I commend you for your efforts to try

to speed up the standards process for the——

Dr. BEMENT. Thank you, sir.

Mr. EHLERS [continuing]. Information technology. That is absolutely essential, because they are very frustrated and ready to set

up their own informal standards organization. So I encourage you

to pursue that diligently. I appreciate——

Dr. BEMENT. I will.

Mr. EHLERS [continuing]. What you have done. First question is

on a type of cyber security we haven’t discussed here at all and

that is voting security.

Dr. BEMENT. Yes.

Mr. EHLERS. I am very, very concerned about that, because I

think that is essential to the proper functioning of a democracy.

And we passed a bill last year, which provided money for local governments to buy new equipment. At my insistence, responsibility

was given for you to establish standards for these. And I am very

52

concerned. States and localities are already going out and buying

equipment and—without an assurance of security. And I just covered in my conversations with elected—pardon me, election officials, who are very, very knowledgeable about the process, but

many are not knowledgeable about cyber security. They just don’t

realize the pitfalls, and it is possible for a good hacker to basically

steal an election without anyone even knowing about it the way

some of the voting machines are constructed. So what is the

progress on setting up the commission, setting up the standards,

and so forth?

Dr. BEMENT. First of all, I agree, entirely, with your assessment.

We have looked into this matter. We have research going on, and

we have dealt with many vendors in trying to understand their systems. Unfortunately, much of the information is proprietary, and

we almost have to reverse engineer to understand them completely.

But with regard to electronic voting machines, the interface between the software and the hardware leaves plenty of room for

cyber attack, for fraud, for lack of trust. We talked about trust earlier. And this is an area where we have to be very active in standards, and we feel this needs to be attended to, and we need to put

much more effort behind it.

Mr. EHLERS. I urge you to pursue that very, very aggressively,

because it is a major problem, and the public is simply not aware

of it.

Dr. BEMENT. It has high priority, as far as I am concerned.

Mr. EHLERS. And if you need greater legislative authority to obtain proprietary information, that is something we should talk

about as well, because I——

Dr. BEMENT. Well, I think we have the authority. I think we

have some understanding, not complete understanding of what

needs to be done. We just have to go out and get it done.

Mr. EHLERS. I appreciate that. The—also, another area within

NIST, you have talked a lot about your activities of various sorts,

but to what extent are you involving the higher education community? And I am talking about two ways: one is through supporting

research there, but secondly through training of students. And I

was astounded to discover recently that the number of math and

science—pardon me, math and computer science majors graduating

from undergraduate institutions today is less than it was approximately 15 years ago. And in fact, there was—it has dropped. It is

starting to come back, but we are still not up where we were.

Clearly, there is a real need for training of these people, and I am

amazed. I just met someone in the airport the other day from my

home state at a higher educational institution, a very prominent

person in information technology, who was—degree was in master

of divinity, and that shows maybe you need that to operate a computer properly. I have always wondered if there are any strange

spirits inside of my computer. But it shows the extent to which we

are recruiting from people who have not been trained——

Dr. BEMENT. Yes.

Mr. EHLERS [continuing]. In this field.

Dr. BEMENT. Clearly, the Committee has recognized one of the

key issues, and that is a need for more education and training. And

that is one of our biggest vulnerabilities. It is not just that we don’t

53

have the policies and the procedures and the specifications; we

don’t have the trained personnel to manage the systems. And it is

in this regard that we look to the National Science Foundation to

do the manpower training, which we, of course, want to work with

them on. But beyond that, in our post-doctorate program at NIST,

which is managed through the National Research Council, we are

trying to pull in more expertise at the post-doctorate level working

at NIST in cyber security so that we can leverage some of our ongoing activities and so we can identify some of the new talent coming

out of the universities who eventually, hopefully, will join our research staff.

Also, in linking up with the research community, I did mention that we did have $5 million that did go out in research grants to

universities. We follow that quite actively. We have worked with

Dartmouth in their program and helping them roadmap or at least

reviewing their road map for cyber security research and development. We have similar interactions with other universities, but I

think the most exciting opportunity is in the Cyber Research and

Development Act. By coupling industry with academia and bringing an understanding of the needs and the technical insights,

which industry can bring with the scientific insights, which academic researchers can bring to the table, and then finding ways to

developing prototypes, standards, and test beds to try and reduce

the lead time of getting new technologies and new approaches to

cyber security into the marketplace in the earliest time possible.

Chairman BOEHLERT. The gentleman’s time is expired. Ms. Woolsey.

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Colwell, it is nice

to see you, gentlemen. Thank you for knowing so much. Mr. Chairman, I have a letter here from the Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board, which is a board established and funded by

the Science Committee, the Computer Security Act of 1987. And it

is responding to the President’s report, which is huge, that was

dated February 2003. And the very final statement, I am not—of

course I want to enter this into the record and ask unanimous consent to do that, but——

Chairman BOEHLERT. Without objection.

[NOTE:The information referred to appears in Appendix 2: Additional Material for the Record.]

Ms. WOOLSEY [continuing]. The last statement in the letter regarding the reports, ‘‘Additionally, the strategy minimally acknowledges the critical issues of information and citizen privacy and fails

to provide specific actions or recommendation. The Board believes

this must be addressed as well.’’ And so my question to you is are

we addressing—I know nothing will be perfect, but are we addressing the tradeoff between privacy and confidentiality and the need

for security?

Dr. BEMENT. Well, let me respond to that. That particular board

is funded by DARPA and is advisory to me—I am sorry, by NIST

and is advisory to me as the Director of NIST. So we support the

board and its activities. And of course, we do take their recommendations very seriously, and those eventually become priorities in our program. Recently, we have, through our interactions

with the National Science Foundation and with the Department of

54

Homeland Security, invited them to become much more active in

the workings of the board. And the board will be meeting, I think,

in June. The board will be meeting in June, and we will certainly

be discussing their recommendations again at that time.

Dr. COLWELL. But I would also like to add that we plan to provide more funding to make sure we understand the interplay between policy and technology and human behavior and technology

and the need for privacy in developing a cyber secure system. So

we intend to do a lot more research in that area as well.

Ms. WOOLSEY. And balancing the privacy piece with the security

piece.

Dr. COLWELL. Yeah.

Ms. WOOLSEY. I am sure that this has been answered, but for

some reason I can’t wrap my mind around—my intellect around

some of the technical conversation we have had here, so what I

would like to do is ask you in down-to-earth questions—words a

couple of things. Do we have adequate tools to—in place? Are we

putting—getting ready with—for that, and if not, why not? What

is holding us up? And is there a way to spread the costs of these

developments among other—many agencies or private industry as

well? Rita.

Dr. COLWELL. The answer is yes in that we are beginning to put

together what really is needed, and that is a concerted, coordinated, and as a result of the Act that was passed, a focus on the

need for cyber security. We do have components of it in place, and

we are coordinating it. But we believe, at NSF, that there is a lot

more research to be done, and what we are trying to do is balance

the research that is needed to advance computer architecture and

software development, et cetera, with this very pressing need for

the security of the systems. So you can’t really pull money out of

the research to make better systems, because that is part of the

problem, but at the same time, you can’t neglect the security aspects of it. So this is a real—at this particular transition stage, this

is a very difficult push and pull.

Dr. BEMENT. I would answer slightly differently. Clearly, there

is a research agenda, and there is a technology agenda, but in our

assessments, we find that the greatest vulnerabilities are not necessarily technical vulnerabilities. They are primarily an ill-educated user population, lack of adequate cyber security research expertise, poorly designed systems and software, specific

vulnerabilities in commercial IT products, and new technologies

that are coming into the marketplace with inadequate testing at

the design and manufacturing stages. So a lot of what is missing

is knowledge, education, and discipline in the system.

Dr. COLWELL. Could I add another comment, please, and that is

to point out that what we are finding in our discussions with the

community is that we really have to include in all of the information technology and computer science training an understanding of

cyber security and understanding of the need for secure systems

and that just having an undergraduate and graduate program on

security isn’t enough. It has got to go across all of the training, just

as Dr. Bement has pointed out, in order for people to understand

what it entails and how to address it.

Ms. WOOLSEY. I will——

55

Chairman BOEHLERT. The gentlelady’s time—well, all right, one

more.

Ms. WOOLSEY. Dr. Bement, you did say, though, we know what

needs to be done, I am paraphrasing you, it’s just doing it. What

is stopping us?

Dr. BEMENT. Nothing is stopping us. Of course——

Ms. WOOLSEY. Is it time?

Dr. BEMENT [continuing]. Resources—we could accelerate if we

had more resources, but a lot of it——

Ms. WOOLSEY. Resources. Well, that is stopping. That is an answer.

Dr. BEMENT. A lot of it is in the private sector. A lot of it requires better protocols, better metrics, better standards. We are

working with the standard development organizations in this area.

It will take time. It is comprehensive. Resources will help.

Chairman BOEHLERT. You know—thank you. The gentlelady’s

time is expired. Dr. Tether pointed out a, I think, very appropriate

observation that DARPA is sort of idea limited. And that is one of

the reasons why, in the cyber bill, we put in all of those programs

for students and to get researchers to change fields. Shouldn’t

funding for those programs be a top priority? And will NSF and

NIST ask for funding for those programs in ’05?

Dr. COLWELL. I can respond, sir, and say that we are going to

be very aggressive in our request for the area of research in ’05.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Dr. Bement.

Dr. BEMENT. I would respond likewise. We are taking it seriously. We have discussed it with the Technology Administration.

We are still early in our ’05 planning, but we are giving this very

high priority.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you very much. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Smith of Texas.

Mr. SMITH OF TEXAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, Mr.

Chairman, let me say to you that I am sorry that I missed most

of the hearing today. Unfortunately, I am a Member of the Judiciary Committee, which has been marking up some legislation downstairs, and so I have had to be there for recorded votes. In fact,

there is one going on now, so I will have to be brief in my questions.

Nonetheless, I did want to ask Dr. Colwell and Dr. McQueary to

respond to a question that I have. And this question basically

comes from a book that I read this last weekend, and I don’t know

if you all are familiar with it or not. It is called ‘‘Tangled Web.’’

And this is a book that makes a compelling case that both the private sector and the Federal Government are not prepared to deal

with the cyber attack today. And furthermore, Mr. Chairman, just

because I am a Member of a relevant Subcommittee, and in the

briefings that we have had, we had been told that there is at least

a 50/50 chance that any kind of terrorist attack that might occur

in the future will involve some aspect of cyberterrorism, either

wholly or in part. Given the nature of that present and future

threat, my question, really for the two witnesses, is do you feel that

the Federal Government today is able to adequately respond to a

cyber attack? It is my impression from, as I say, reading this book

‘‘Tangled Web’’ that we are, today, not capable of responding to a

56

terrorist attack and stopping it from costing American lives or perhaps disrupting the economy. But I would be interested in your

perspectives.

Dr. COLWELL. Do you care to start and then I will add?

Dr. MCQUEARY. Certainly. We do have the NTAC [National

Threat Assessment Center] and the Carnegie Mellon—the capability to respond if we do see a cyber attack. If—one could postulate

attacks that we could not respond to, I suppose, effectively, but certainly there is a wide variety I think have been demonstrated in

the past of capability to respond to any——

Mr. SMITH OF TEXAS. You feel comfortable with our ability today

to not be the victim of a cyber attack?

Dr. MCQUEARY. I did not attempt to say that. What I was trying

to say was that there are many kinds of attacks that we could respond to. In order to say that we couldn’t respond to it, one would

have to know what kind of attack——

Mr. SMITH OF TEXAS. What kind of attacks are we not able to respond to?

Dr. MCQUEARY. I don’t know the answer to that, sir, off the top

of my head.

Mr. SMITH OF TEXAS. How can you know what we can respond

to if——

Dr. MCQUEARY. Well, because we have done this in the past

through this—the NTAC and the—at the Carnegie Mellon Group,

because we have demonstrated——

Mr. SMITH OF TEXAS. Right.

Dr. MCQUEARY [continuing]. That in the past, and therefore by

definition, we see that we have been able to respond to things that

we have seen in the past.

Mr. SMITH OF TEXAS. Dr. Colwell, do you agree with that?

Dr. COLWELL. I think that we have done research that has allowed us to build firewalls. And I think for the most part, the firewalls that protect sets of data and sets of operations are, on a daily

basis, effective. Obviously, there are opportunities for attack that

could be devastating. And it is hard to predict exactly what they

would be, but I do feel somewhat assured by the—yesterday, the

Seattle, I think it was in Seattle, there was a mock attack, which

included cyber, as well, as the direct attack with chemical and biological weaponry. But I think that is important, because it shows

that this is a multi-dimensional——

Mr. SMITH OF TEXAS. Right.

Dr. COLWELL [continuing]. Terrorist—potential terrorist problem.

And cyber security is a component of it. And I think we are well

aware of that now. And awareness is the beginning of protection.

Mr. SMITH OF TEXAS. And certainly awareness is the first step.

You have both said that you feel that we have protected ourselves

against cyber attacks that have already occurred, but not necessarily—we are not necessarily able to protect ourselves against

all conceivable cyber attacks, is that a fair statement?

Dr. COLWELL. Well, I—yeah.

Mr. SMITH OF TEXAS. And I see Dr. Bement is shaking his head

yes as well.

Dr. BEMENT. Firewalls tend to be pretty ubiquitous, but, in many

cases, they don’t contain all of the ‘‘four R’s’’. And what I mean by

57

the ‘‘four R’s’’, first of all, you have to recognize an attack. In many

cases, you don’t recognize an attack through a firewall. Second, you

have to resist it once you recognize it. Then you have to respond

to it, and then you have to recover from it. And those are the four

R’s. And——

Mr. SMITH OF TEXAS. That is exactly the point of this book that

I referred to——

Dr. BEMENT. Right.

Mr. SMITH OF TEXAS [continuing]. That firewalls are not sufficient, which is what you just said.

Dr. BEMENT. And so I would say we have a long way to go, and

with a determined cyber attacker, with the right kind of training,

they would be able to defeat many of the systems we currently

have.

Mr. SMITH OF TEXAS. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Bement, for your—

thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am finished.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Mr. Smith, just let me tell you, you are

right on in terms of focusing on an area we all have to focus on.

And it was—our vulnerability. I recognize vulnerability that

prompted this committee to try to provide some leadership, and

that resulted in this Cyber Security Research and Development Act.

And now what we are trying to do is make certain that all of the

agencies for whom we have earmarked a lot of resources, insufficient I might add, but we are trying our best, are working together,

are coordinating their activities, and are taking the pledge here

and now that this is a matter of high priority. And you have got

to give this increasing attention. And that—you were not here earlier, they have assured us of that. Department of Homeland Security has just been up since—essentially since 1 March. Dr.

McQueary is the new guy on the block, and it is just a mind-boggling challenge. I think he is up to the challenge, and I think we,

collectively, are up to the challenge. But we better damn well get

serious about this and not just talk but act. So thank you very

much for those observations.

Mr. SMITH OF TEXAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman,

I might add, I think one of the reasons that Dr. McQueary is up

to the challenge is because he has two degrees from the University

of Texas.

Dr. MCQUEARY. You are very kind, sir. Thank you.

Chairman BOEHLERT. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Bell.

Mr. BELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for missing

your testimony. There is cyber security and there is Congressional

District security, and since my district is currently under attack in

the state of Texas, we decided we would go pay homage to our

friends holed in Ardmore, Oklahoma. So that is why I wasn’t

present, and I hope you understand.

Dr. Tether, I wanted to visit with you for just a moment, because

I found your remarks to be refreshing. I have only been here for

four months, and I have had a bunch of people come and tell me

that they have ideas but they don’t have money. You are the first

I have heard that has plenty of money but a shortage of ideas. So

it is a nice turnaround. But I wanted to—you—I understand your

reluctance to talk about cyber warfare and what is being planned

in that regard, but several months ago, there was a rather extenVerDate 11-MAY-2000 22:12 Oct 04, 2003 Jkt 086992 PO 00000 Frm 00061 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\WORKD\FULL03\051403\86992 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
58

sive article in the Washington Post about some of the plans that

were being undertaken by the Department of Defense, some of the

studies that were being conducted. And I sort of subscribe to the

theory if it has been in the Washington Post, it is going to be hard

to keep it secret after that. And they talked about looking at ways

to, perhaps, wipe out the entire electrical grid in the wake of war

or while involved in war, looking at maybe shutting down hospitals

that use cyber technology. My question is, knowing that those efforts are going forward, what is the collaboration between those

who are looking at ways to attack and using it in an offensive position and those looking to defend, because it would seem to me that

there should be a great deal of collaboration in those areas?

Dr. TETHER. Well, it—even though it appeared in the Washington

Post, I still have a hard time confirming or denying the Washington

Post. But let me tell you, one of the—there is a great collaboration

that goes on between those who look at offensive things versus

those who look at defensive things, because they are really two

sides of the same coin. So the people who are doing the offensive

parts, when they develop techniques, we then obviously build a defense against that technique. So the people—and vice versa. When

people build a defensive technique, then the offensive people need

to know about it in order to try to penetrate that technique. So

there is a great amount of collaboration that goes on between those

two communities. Let me say, at least within DARPA, some of the

operational people would not have a collaboration because it is

very, very sensitive, but in our research, there is a great collaboration between the two communities: those who are coming up with

techniques to penetrate and those who are coming up with techniques to prevent people from penetrating. I really can’t give you

any—I would be happy to give you all of the details, quite frankly,

but I just can’t here.

Mr. BELL. No, I understand.

Dr. TETHER. Yeah.

Mr. BELL. And I don’t expect you to, and that wasn’t the point

of the question. I am more interested in what kind of collaboration

is taking place.

Dr. TETHER. There is a lot of collaboration in—between those two

communities for those—for the reasons I gave.

Mr. BELL. What is the general feeling as to where the United

States stands right now in terms of cyber warfare? Are we behind

in that area or are we ahead?

Dr. TETHER. I almost would have to go country by country, and

I would rather not, for—again, for classification reasons. I——

Mr. BELL. But we are certainly not alone?

Dr. TETHER. Oh, no. No, we are most certainly not alone. We are

most certainly not alone. And I think you can obviously—the obvious large players like the—like Russia, China, you know, these are

people who are taking this very seriously, very smart people. We

are not alone.

Mr. BELL. Thank you.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Excuse me, if I may interrupt here. Some

would argue they are taking it more seriously than we have been

in the past, but now we have a new focus.

59

Mr. BELL. Well, taking this whole question of collaboration a step

further, because, and I am—and I don’t want to put words in your

mouth, but you were saying—I don’t know if you said you heard

about some things today or recently that you didn’t know that were

going on. And I would expect that. But this is an area where I

would think that it is really incumbent upon those who are involved to be talking to each other. And are there steps that need

to be taken to make that easier?

Dr. TETHER. Well, you know, when I said that, I was referring

to the activity between DARPA and NSF. And what you learn,

DARPA is really a Program Manager place, and there are 160 Program Managers. I don’t know how many Dr. Colwell has, but she

has a few.

And you would be amazed what goes on that the Directors don’t

know of, each agency doesn’t know what is going on. So what I

had—when this hearing came up, I put out a call to all my offices

saying, ‘‘Why don’t you guys tell me what you are doing with

NSF?’’ You know. ‘‘Go and find out what the program’’—and I got

a lot of activity. I mean, I have got an enormous amount of activity

that I did not know about. And—but it is our Program Managers

farming the ideas coming out of NSF so that they could bring them

back and say, ‘‘Hey, look. Here is a great idea.’’ And this is—I am

talking about cyber security type of activity now, not just in general. In general, there is a real large amount of activity, but—so

they can come back with an idea, which what DARPA does is takes

that idea. And we basically take it to the next step of applying it,

you know, taking that idea into a technology that can be used.

But there is a great deal of activity that has—that was going on

that I—quite honestly, I was not really aware of. I kind of figured

it was going on, but I didn’t know the specifics. And I was impressed.

Chairman BOEHLERT. The gentleman’s time is expired. I am sort

of surprised by that answer, a veteran like you. With Dr.

McQueary, he is just in, the new guy on the block, and he knows

what every one of those 180,000 people are doing within in the new

Department of Homeland Security.

Mr. BELL. But Dr. McQueary went to UT.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Oh, boy. With that, Mr. Udall.

Mr. UDALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, want to thank the

Chairman for calling this important oversight hearing today and

thank him for his leadership on this whole area of cyber security.

It is also—it is inspiring to see the all-stars out here on this panel,

and thank you for your service to the country and for your great

help and assistance you provide to the Committee.

I want to ask two general questions, and Dr. McQueary, I will

give you a heads-up on the second question, which I am going to

ask you first. And your Directorate has requested about $800 million in this fiscal year of 2004. And I am just curious how that

money would be allocated, particularly to cyber security. If you

would, set that question aside and hopefully we will get to it.

The second one—question was to yourself and Dr. Bement. And

it is always great to see the NIST Director here.

Dr. BEMENT. Thank you.

60

Mr. UDALL. I know you have under—you have signed an MOU

between DHS and NIST.

Dr. BEMENT. Pending.

Mr. UDALL. Yeah, pending. Thanks for that correction. Can you

provide me, the two of you, with your understanding of the activities that would be carried out under the MOU and the respective

roles of NIST and DHS? And I think most importantly for most—

for all of us is will NIST have the resources to carry out the activities envisioned in the MOU?

Dr. BEMENT. The answer to the second question is yes; we will

have the resources. The answer to the first question is that the

MOU is very comprehensive. It includes technical support, research

and development support, and standards support across the whole

mission spectrum of the Science and Technology Directorate. Cyber

security is clearly one of the keystone elements of that MOU, and

it is one that we have already anticipated by putting one of our research staff with DHS in cyber security to begin coordinating that

activity.

Mr. UDALL. Dr. McQueary, would you like to——

Dr. MCQUEARY. I would be happy to. The—in the—as you cor- rectly point out, the fiscal year 2004 budget request is $803 million

for the Science and Technology Directorate. Within that budget, we

have $7 million that are specifically allocated toward cyber security-related activities. And I would like for you to keep in mind

that the basis for that is that our role is one of supporting the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate within Homeland Security and providing Science and Technology support to them in that. We are just barely operational. And of course

the Critical Infrastructure Protection Board was in existence at a

time when we actually constructed that budget. And therefore, if

we were to find that the money we have, we conclude, is not adequate, I have no problem whatsoever in revisiting what the budget

allocation is and looking for support from people like yourself for

making such an evaluation.

Mr. UDALL. Mr. Chairman, if I might, I would like to yield to my

colleague, Ms. Jackson Lee, for 30 seconds. She has to leave, but

she wanted to make a brief statement.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. First of all, let me thank the Chairman for

this very important hearing. I was in a markup in Judiciary, and

now I have been called off to another meeting. Gentlemen, I would

ask the Chairman to have permission to unanimously put into the

record my statement, and I will——

Chairman BOEHLERT. Without objection.

Ms. JACKSON LEE [continuing]. Proceed with the individuals on

this important issue as a Member of the Homeland Security Committee. I thank you. This is a major question for our community

cyber security.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Udall.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you very much. Mr. Udall, you have

two minutes remaining.

Mr. UDALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It might be, I think, of

some interest to the Committee that when the MOU is signed, perhaps there is a way to get a further update as to how that might

unfold and I don’t know whether we would need to do that formally

61

or informally, but I would make that request to the two of you

today and——

Dr. MCQUEARY. I would be happy to do that.

Mr. UDALL [continuing]. The Chairman as well. Do you have—

when we talk about the funding, Dr. McQueary, you mentioned

some of the criteria you used. Did you cover all of the criteria that

had been involved in determining how this cyber security money

will be directed and where you will focus those initial efforts?

Dr. MCQUEARY. Well, initially, when we—when our budget was

constructed, our intent was to focus on the forensics aspect of cyber

security and also attribution, those being two areas that appeared

as though we could make a contribution in that area. I think that

we will be continually examining what our role is, because, as you

know, the IAIP organization did not have—in fact, it does not

today, have an Under Secretary that leads that effort yet, although

a nomination has gone forth for that, and we are hopeful that that

will be approved expeditiously. And so we will be working very,

very closely with the IAIP people to make sure that we do have the

proper amount of budget and the right scientific areas being focused in support of their conclusions on what we need to be doing.

Mr. UDALL. The—your presence today and the Chairman’s commitment to this whole area underlines the crucial nature of it. I do

think—if I could just make a general comment, we all have work

to do to educate the American public as to the threat we face. Like

so many other areas in this modern society in which we live, we

take for granted a lot of the conveniences, a lot of the systems that

make our lives easier than they might have been 100 years ago.

And I think anything you can do to help us, we can help—do to

help you in that mission, I think, would be time well spent. I

think—I am reminded of the movie ‘‘Catch Me If You Can’’. I don’t

know if you have all seen that, maybe that has been mentioned

today, but in a way, we want to recruit some of those people that

fit the model of that young man in that movie who would be inclined to, because they want the adventure, I think, of breaking

these systems and getting into places where other people haven’t

been and see if we can bring them to the side of us and create a

socially productive avenue, so we say, for those young hackers out

there. We ought to be looking at that. That is an opportunity, I

think, as well as a threat.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and again, I want to thank the panel.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you very much. Dr. McQueary,

where is the research going to be focused in DHS? Who is going

to be doing it?

Dr. MCQUEARY. For cyber security specifically?

Chairman BOEHLERT. Right.

Dr. MCQUEARY. It will be conducted by the Science and Technology Directorate, yes, sir.

Chairman BOEHLERT. All right.

Dr. MCQUEARY. And that is the role that we——

Chairman BOEHLERT. Have you earmarked where within your

operation?

Dr. MCQUEARY. Where specifically within——

Chairman BOEHLERT. Right.

Dr. MCQUEARY [continuing]. My organization?

62

1This information is provided in Dr. McQueary’s answers to post-hearing questions, located

in Appendix 1.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Have you identified people and——

Dr. MCQUEARY. Yes, we have. In fact, we have

people——

Chairman BOEHLERT. People and dollars?

Dr. MCQUEARY. People and dollars, yes. Yes.

Chairman BOEHLERT. That is good. Could you provide that for

the record——1

Dr. MCQUEARY. That was a—yes, sir.

Chairman BOEHLERT [continuing]. At your convenience? All

right. The Chair recognizes Ms. Lofgren.

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would also like to

offer my apologies, as several other Members have. I am also a

Member of the Judiciary Committee, and I also was tied down in

a markup all morning, so I missed your testimony, although I have

read it. And I appreciate the Chairman’s calling this hearing. I

would note, I am a Member of the Homeland Security Committee

and ranking on the Cyber Security Subcommittee, and we have

beaten Homeland Security to the punch on this hearing. And so I

will see you, I guess, next week as well on some of these issues.

Chairman BOEHLERT. As we all will—several of us will.

Ms. LOFGREN. Right. I do want to just briefly return to one issue

and explore another, and then I know the lunch hour is here. As

I am sure you recall, Dr. Bement, there was concern last Congress

about the proposal to shift some NIST activities to DHS. And the

concern really—and this committee, on a bipartisan basis, objected

to that, and in the end, Congress did not approve that shift. I am

sure you are aware that there is anxiety in the country about the

detailing of staff by NIST to DHS and whether that has the effect

of accomplishing administratively what the Congress did not approve last Congress. I am not suggesting that is the case. I would

like to explore that with you.

Dr. BEMENT. I would say that—I am sorry.

Ms. LOFGREN. The question really has to do is what are they

doing specifically? I know you say there is a detailed MOU, but

specifically, I would like to know the nature of that—their activities relative to encryption. Can you address that?

Dr. BEMENT. To my knowledge, there is no work going on in

encryption at the present time. We have two people detailed to the

Department of Homeland Security. One is providing a coordination

role between DHS and NIST in terms of acquainting DHS with our

cyber security efforts. Now the other person is working with

Science and Technology Directorate in, working with Dr. Albright

in back of me, as a matter of fact, in developing a national strategy

for DHS and standards development. And of course, that is our

area of expertise——

Ms. LOFGREN. Right.

Dr. BEMENT [continuing]. So we are willing to assist—I mean, we

are happy and anxious to assist DHS in that area. And as far as

the issue that you brought up, we are very grateful to the Committee for recognizing the importance of the independent role that

NIST plays with the private sector in developing guidelines and in

63

developing specifications and standards in the area of cyber security. And anything that we do with other agencies, we preserve

that independence and that integrity, so I wanted to assure you of

that.

Ms. LOFGREN. I wonder if I could—I know you are going to provide the draft MOU to the full Committee. I—as a Member of the

Homeland Security Committee, it would be especially helpful to me

if I could get a copy of that prior to our hearings next week, if I

could ask that favor.

Dr. BEMENT. We—I think the signing will be taking place on

Monday.

Dr. MCQUEARY. I believe the 19th is the day that we did have

that set up.

Dr. BEMENT. The 19th of May, and we will provide a copy to you

as soon after it is signed as we can.

Ms. LOFGREN. Let me ask another question relative—it is actually to funding, and I know that probably people who head bureaus

and directorates and departments or—and are probably discouraged from complaining about their funding to Congressional Committees. But I am concerned about whether there is sufficient funding to do some of the things that I think are essential to the national security. One of the issues that has been discussed informally at the Homeland Security Committee is the lack of—or at

least apparent lack of rigorous analysis of biometric standards. And

what are we looking for in terms of ease of use, reliability,

scalability, et cetera, et cetera?

And I am wondering—it seems to me that the absolute best home

for that kind of analysis is NIST, because it is a standards issue.

It is not a policy issue. It is not a political—it is a standards issue.

And I know last year, I asked NIST to provide me with information

about biometrics. You very kindly responded, but it was not original research. It was sort of a compilation of what is out there, and

I will say it was rather thin. Is NIST sufficiently funded to accomplish that kind of biometrics analysis and standard setting if the

Department of Homeland Security were to ask you to do so?

Dr. BEMENT. We certainly have the competence to do that and

until now, most of the resource that has been going into that area

has partly come out of our base program. Part of it has been provided by DARPA.

Ms. LOFGREN. So we would need to provide——

Dr. BEMENT. Part of it has come from——

Ms. LOFGREN [continuing]. Additional funding?

Dr. BEMENT [continuing]. Department of State, Department of

Justice. And in our ’04 budget request, we have requested that $1

million of additional funding in order to beef up our effort in this

area. So it is in our ’04 budget request.

Ms. LOFGREN. Is $1 million enough to actually accomplish that?

Dr. BEMENT. No, but it is all we could work in.

Ms. LOFGREN. All right. I—how much would you need if the DHS

were to ask you to accomplish that function quickly and reliably?

What would the tag be, do you think?

Dr. BEMENT. We feel it would be $3 million.

Ms. LOFGREN. All right. Thank you very much, and I see my time

is expired.

64

Mr. EHLERS. [Presiding.] We will proceed with a brief second

round of questions. I will kick off a few. First of all, Dr. McQueary,

you have got a blank piece of paper in front of you for what you

are going to do. And my question is—I have several questions related to that. Who is going to perform the cyber security research

for you? Are you planning to hire staff members? Do you plan to

have—use grants to universities or contracts or grants with the

private sector companies or other federal agencies? What do you

see as developing here?

Dr. MCQUEARY. I see it as being a combination of all of the

things that you just talked about. The construct of the Science and

Technology Directorate is such that we will largely be in the role

of managing the programs that will be executed, both the federal

and national labs, private sector, as well as university academia,

if you will. And so we will have the leadership role. In fact, we

have about four people already in roles, which I touched upon earlier, that are detailed to us with—and have experience in the cyber

security area. So we will provide the leadership, oversight, program

management responsibility, if you will, and contract that work out

into the various sectors you talked about, always looking for where

the top quality work is being done to capitalize upon that.

Mr. EHLERS. Okay. And do you think cyber security will get the

attention it needs? Are you going to have sufficient funds to do all

of the things you are supposed to do in your area? And given all

of the different competing needs that you will have to deal with,

is cyber security going to get the attention it needs?

Dr. MCQUEARY. Well, it certainly has the attention—has my attention, and I have the responsibility for constructing the—a budget and making the proposal to Secretary Ridge as to what we

should do there, so if we do not get the sufficient attention, then

I am the first person that one should come to to say why not, because I have that responsibility in Science and Technology.

Mr. EHLERS. Okay. Our concern would be that it would just be

considered just one more aspect of infrastructure protection in the

overall scheme of things in DHS.

Dr. MCQUEARY. I am sorry, I missed the question.

Mr. EHLERS. I am just worried that this may just be considered

one other aspect of infrastructure protection within DHS and actually be competing with all of the different——

Dr. MCQUEARY. I believe that we will see some organizational restructuring very shortly within DHS that will, I hope, illustrate to

you that we do take this issue very, very seriously.

Mr. EHLERS. Okay. And something else. I don’t know if—I would

be interested in what all of you have to say, but perhaps you don’t

have the figures with you and want to respond in writing, which

would be fine. I am curious what is being spent on cyber security

R&D by the Federal Government in total and how much by the private sector. Do you have an idea of this or would it be better to

just ask you to send in the information?

Dr. MCQUEARY. I do not have the information, sir.

Mr. EHLERS. All right. Dr. Colwell, if you have——

Dr. COLWELL. Right now, we have about $53 million, but that can go up to as high as $75 or $76 million, depending on the outcome of some competitions that are in play at the moment for the

65

potential for a center award and a potential for scholarships and

so forth. But we see, pretty much, coming close to the authorized

number.

Mr. EHLERS. Okay. Dr. Bement.

Dr. BEMENT. Well, I can only speak for NIST. As I indicated in my testimony, we currently have $24 million of appropriated and

base funding going into cyber security. We also have additional

funding coming from other agencies: the National Security Agency

and DARPA.

Mr. EHLERS. Um-hum.

Dr. BEMENT. I think our DARPA account is around $5.2 million,

so adding that all together, it would still be less than $50 million

in NIST. As far as the Federal Government at large or the Nation

at large, I don’t really have those numbers.

Mr. EHLERS. Okay. And Dr. Tether.

Dr. TETHER. I also don’t really know what the Federal Government is spending, but at DARPA, we are spending—in ’04, we will

be spending around $50 million in cyber—in information awareness. But there is more that we are spending that I actually will

give you for the record, because we are doing cyber security with

other programs. For example, we are building networks. And then

there are activities within the building of a network, which is also

to make the network secure, so it is embedded. I will try to pull

that out for you. But it might be another $50 million, so it might

be a total of 100. And then we have the classified work, which I

will tell you separately.

Mr. EHLERS. All right. And are you also including in your work

efforts to prevent damage from electromagnetic pulses, or is

that——

Dr. TETHER. No.

Mr. EHLERS [continuing]. Considered totally separately?

Dr. TETHER. That is considered totally separate, yeah.

Mr. EHLERS. Okay. But by and large, Defense Department facilities are hardened against that?

Dr. TETHER. They are hardened against that.

Mr. EHLERS. Yeah.

Dr. TETHER. There are requirements for them to be hardened

against that.

Mr. EHLERS. Do you have any idea to what extent the private

sector or—is hardened against EMP?

Dr. TETHER. I would be surprised—well, first of all, they—all—

everybody has, usually, a surge suppresser——

Mr. EHLERS. Right.

Dr. TETHER [continuing]. You know, which gives them some

hardening, but that would be, probably, the limit. I don’t know of

anything else.

Mr. EHLERS. I would think banks, at least, would want that.

Dr. TETHER. You would think so.

Dr. BEMENT. I think they would still be vulnerable against pulse

power attack. I mean, if——

Mr. EHLERS. Yes.

Dr. BEMENT. If an attacker had the capability——

Mr. EHLERS. Yeah, a surge protector won’t do too much.

Dr. BEMENT. No, it won’t do you very much.

66

Dr. TETHER. No. No.

Mr. EHLERS. No. Okay. My time is expired. Anyone else wish

to—Mr. Miller, you are recognized for five minutes.

Mr. MILLER. One last set of questions. Is it Dr. Bement?

Dr. BEMENT. Bement.

Mr. MILLER. Bement. Okay. What you said in response to Ms.

Woolsey’s questions were very reassuring to me that what we need

is knowledge, education, and discipline. The security is now available, I think you said, through protocols, metrics, and standards,

that we have very smart people working on this, and that there is

nothing stopping us from doing it, from being secure. And I—and

that is greatly reassuring to me. And Dr. McQueary pointed out

correctly, of course, that anyone in the private sector is going to

know the risk to their business of not being secure, of suffering an

attack.

Dr. BEMENT. Yes.

Mr. MILLER. What I am concerned about, somewhat, is that there

is—there will always be people who do things on the cheap, who

don’t—do not show knowledge, education, and discipline. And what

are we doing to make sure that when people in the private sector

do their kind of assessment of what it costs to adopt the security

measures they should adopt versus the risk that they face if they

don’t, that they take into account not just the risk to them, to their

business, but the risk to others that they deal with—the ripple effect that we talked about earlier? The loss of the power grid, obviously, would have a massive effect. I think you mentioned, or Dr.

Tether mentioned, the possibility that—or it may have been you,

that hospitals could be shut down. Obviously there is risk to others

and not just the direct loss and disruption to the victim of an attack, but of all those deal with. Are we doing anything for requiring anyone in the private sector to adopt security measures? Have

we thought through whether the standards that we are developing,

the protocols, form the basis of a standard of care for civil liability?

What are we doing to make sure that people in the private sector

think through the risk, not just to them, but on down the line?

Dr. BEMENT. I can tell you this much that many of the professional societies who have begun to pay attention to these risks,

which are really the product of the probability of the event plus the

consequence—times the consequence of the event, have begin—

have begun to develop risk models with their constituents so that

industry is better informed about what the consequence of a cyber

attack might be, or any other vulnerability might be. I have to say

that, as a Nation, our greatest vulnerability is indifference.

I think it was Dr. McQueary that pointed out that 85 percent of

our industry and productive capacity is owned by the private sector. And yet, all of the surveys that I have looked at recently in

surveying the private sector on what they are doing in terms of either vulnerability assessment or dealing with risks, terrorist risks,

indicate that they don’t really see themselves as a target, which is

sort of indifference. And in some respects, I think it may, in order

to bring it home to them, require some of the kind of exercises or

demonstrations that took place this last weekend to actually demonstrate what the consequence might be of these attacks so that

CEOs and other leaders in industry will have it brought home to

67

them, what it could, in fact, mean to their manufacturing operation, their logistics train, their supply train, all of their other elements that they have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. And I feel

that that is our biggest vulnerability right now is they just haven’t

quite stepped up to the plate.

Mr. MILLER. Do you know if the insurance industry has looked

at cyber security as a liability issue?

Dr. BEMENT. I am sure they have. Yes, indeed, they have. The

insurance rates have gone up dramatically since 9/11, so there

clearly is a payback in being able to demonstrate that you are

much better protected against these types of attacks.

Mr. MILLER. Well, is it the only——

Dr. BEMENT. It is not only insurance; it is the reinsurance rate

as well.

Mr. MILLER. Right. Well, yes, the—I imagine the potential liability is massive. It would require going to the reinsurance markets.

Is it being excluded for policies? Is it being included in policies? Are

insurance companies—liability insurers having a word of prayer

with their insureds about what they are doing?

Dr. BEMENT. Well, I must confess this is getting a little bit beyond my ken or my area of expertise, so I really can’t——

Mr. MILLER. But it is a strong economic incentive——

Dr. BEMENT. Yes.

Mr. MILLER [continuing]. To do the right thing?

Dr. BEMENT. I would think so, yes.

Mr. EHLERS. The gentleman’s time has expired. Mr. Udall, do

you have any questions?

Mr. UDALL. Mr. Chairman, I had a last question, hopefully,

thankfully, although this is a topic, which we will revisit. Dr. Tether, I was just curious in looking over your material you compiled

for the Committee and the good work you did here in describing

network centric warfare and suggesting we maybe aren’t quite

there yet, but we are certainly network-dependent. Have you gotten any indication out of the recent conflict in Iraq that the Iraqis

had any kind of cyber security tools that we hadn’t anticipated or

that there were, perhaps, other countries or other individuals developing those for the Iraqis or for future opponents?

Dr. TETHER. The—I don’t know of anything. That doesn’t mean

that there wasn’t something. GPS jamming was the only thing that

I know about.

Mr. UDALL. I am sure you are going to take a look at that, and

I would bet that some of this may well be classified, but we always

have, when we have these encounters, have a chance to then review our mistakes as well as our successes.

Dr. TETHER. Yes, and that is all being done.

Mr. UDALL. I hope we will—I know we will do that.

Dr. TETHER. Yeah.

Mr. UDALL. And it strikes me that the military, once again, is on

the cutting edge of some of these technologies and we look at the

history of the Armed Services, and much of what was generated in

the Second World War is now used in civilian activities. One of my

real interests, and I share with our Chairman of the Committee is

energy, and the military is leading the way in certain new technologies: fuel cell technology, photovoltaic uses and others because

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of the transformation we are trying to put underway in our military. So I think you all have a very—I just wanted to conclude by

saying you, of course, have a very important role to play in this.

And we look forward to this all-star team working together

seamlessly to help lead us to a more cyber secure future.

Dr. TETHER. Well, it is clear with the—private industry really

has not been able to do the tradeoff of what does it cost them to

not have it. It is very clear for the military, when we are becoming

really dependent upon that network being there, what happens if

that network is not there. So the tradeoff is, you know, very clear.

There is no—we have to make those networks secure, otherwise everything we are building for the future will not work, and that

would be a disaster, I mean, to the national security.

Mr. UDALL. Mr. Chairman, I have many more questions, but I

think the lunch hour does beckon. I would yield back my remaining

time. I thank, again, the panel.

Mr. EHLERS. The gentleman yields back his time, and I am sure

the panel appreciates it, and the audience. I just wanted to pick

up on the last two comments. First of all, perhaps it is only

through higher insurance rates that people will become aware of

the need for protecting their equipment. And that goes to your last

point, too, Dr. Tether, that most people and most businesses don’t

realize the risk and therefore they don’t take the trouble to protect

against it.

But it is a bit ironic, Dr. Bement, that you mentioned the electric

power industry, because I, for roughly five years now, I have been

telling my constituents in town meetings, and I had to, because I

voted against the Defense appropriations for three years, because

I thought they were funding the wrong things. And of course, all

of the veterans show up at my town meetings and castigate me for

not supporting Defense. But I simply pointed out that what we are

doing is pouring a lot more money into the same old systems, and

the real danger is not a major nation attacking us, it is terrorists

attacking us. Unfortunately, I was correct, and so we are all now

alerted to that.

But the other example I give my constituents now, because they

are all terrified about aviation, and I simply say, ‘‘The problem is

we always fight the last war.’’ And we are now making our airlines

super safe, and we have to worry about port security and then the

power industry. I have said, for a number of times, ‘‘Give me 20

knowledgeable people about computers and explosives—and a little

explosives, and I could bring down the power grid in one night.’’

And of course, we could get it up again in probably four or five

days, but can you imagine what the cost is of four or five days’ productivity to our nation, particularly if this can happen repetitively?

So it is—the best way, of course, is to stop terrorism at its

source. It is impossible to really totally defend against it here, but

we can certainly do much more in defending against terrorism

within our borders than we are currently doing. And we tend not

to wake up. As you say, they are—it is indifference. The indifference goes away with each specific attack, but then we tend to prevent to guard against that attack again. And there is a plethora

of possibilities for terrorist activity.

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I want to thank the panel very much. It is been an outstanding

panel. You have each represented very well the expertise available

within your agencies or departments. And I certainly appreciate

your attendance here. The information you have given will be, indeed, very valuable to us as we continue our deliberations. Thank

you very much for being here. With that, the hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

(71)

Appendix 1:

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

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ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Dr. Charles E. McQueary, Under Secretary for Science and Technology,

Department of Homeland Security

Questions submitted by Chairman Sherwood Boehlert

Q1. You stated at the hearing that you would provide for the record information on

the people and dollars that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science

and Technology directorate plans to devote to cyber security research and development activities in fiscal years 2003 and 2004. Please do so. In addition, to

what extent do you expect your fiscal year 2003 funding for cyber security research and development to be spent for support of DHS personnel? For support

of programs at other federal agencies and national laboratories? For grants and

contracts to universities and companies? (When providing the information requested in this question, please distinguish between research and development

programs and education and workforce training programs.)

A1. The Science and Technology Directorate’s current plans for people and funding

devoted to cyber security research and development in FY 2003 and FY 2004 are

as follows:

FY 2003: 2 staff members within the DHS Science and Technology Directorate and funding of approximately $5 million.

FY 2004: 2 staff members within the DHS Science and Technology Directorate and funding of approximately $7 million.

For FY 2003: The DHS Science and Technology Directorate plans to fund about $1 million per year at universities through the National Science Foundation (NSF).

A contract with a private firm for about $1 million has been awarded to continue

work addressing insider threats. In addition, proposals with a total value of about

$3 million over three years are pending from the National institute of Standards

and Technology (NIST), a nonprofit research institute and another federal agency

for additional cyber security research and development; until these are actual

awards, it is not appropriate to estimate the actual amounts to these entities. We

would be pleased to provide this information after actual awards are made if this

is desired. Each of these existing and pending efforts are research and development

activities; none are education/workforce training efforts.

Q2. At the hearing, you said that if the funding you have proposed for cyber security

research and development for fiscal year 2004 ‘‘is not adequate,’’ you would

‘‘have no problem whatsoever in revisiting what the budget allocation is.’’ When

will you begin reviewing the factors that determine what level of spending is

needed? How will you decide if the level is ‘‘not adequate’’? When will you let

us know whether you believe the allocation should be changed?

A2. The Science and Technology Directorate has reviewed its proposed FY 2004

funding and currently believes the proposed amount for cyber security research and

development (R&D) is adequate. However, we continue to assess our research and

development plans in the context of the national effort in cyber security. If we determine that the proposed amount of our funding is not adequate, we would first evaluate the impact of reprioritization and re-allocation of existing budgets. If believed

necessary, we would bring a request for additional funding forward for consideration

through the appropriate mechanisms. Additionally, in order to accurately determine

what level of funding is needed for cyber security research and development, we will

continue to work with other agencies with R&D responsibilities, such as NIST and

NSF, to identify requirements and gaps in funding. This coordinated approach will

assist in making the right investments in this area while preventing unnecessary

and wasteful duplication.

Q3. In other forums, you have stated that most of the focus of the DHS Science and

Technology Directorate at first will be on shorter-term technology development.

How will you balance technology development and basic research in cyber security? Do you expect that balance to change over time?

A3. The Science and Technology Directorate recognizes there are some technology

needs that require immediate attention; some of these needs were identified in the

National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, while others have been identified by the

critical infrastructure protection community. The Science and Technology Directorate believes that those cyber security issues which require basic research to solve

are more within the scope of the National Science Foundation than our Directorate.

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Our long-term portfolio plan may address basic research to some degree through

programs directed out of the cyber security research and development center.

Q4. At the hearing, you testified that the Committee will ‘‘see some organizational

restructuring very shortly within DHS that will. . .illustrate to [the Committee]

that we [at DHS] do take [cyber security] very, very seriously.’’ Since the hearing,

there have been press reports that DHS will establish an office to execute the

President’s National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace. Please tell us for the record

what restructuring is intended and when it will occur. What will the responsibilities and size of the new office be?

A4. The reference to the DHS restructuring around cyber security referred to the

subsequent announcement of the creation of the National Cyber Security Division

(NCSD) within the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection (IAIP) Directorate. The NCSD incorporates some of the operational capabilities of the Federal

Computer Incident Response Center (FedCIRC), the National Communications System, and the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), along with new

streamlined and consolidated outreach and awareness capabilities recently formed

in the Directorate. The NCSD is adding new capabilities for vulnerability assessments, risk reduction methodologies, threat analysis, and enhancing training and

workforce development activities in the public and private sectors. At present, it is

expected that the NCSD will have about 40 FTEs total and a budget of about $86

million, including the funding for civilian salaries and operating expenses.

The Science and Technology Directorate has also organized its cyber security research and development with the intent of making it a visible and important component of its total research and development effort.

Q5. DHS, through its planned work with critical infrastructure suppliers, has an opportunity to connect researchers with companies that have real, unsolved cyber

security problems. How will DHS make these connections? How will the issue

of sensitive critical infrastructure information be handled in these situations?

A5. The Science and Technology Directorate is establishing a cyber security research and development center that will enable partnerships with academia, private

industry and national laboratories. A principal purpose of this center is to engage

the researchers with the product developers and accomplish technology transfer to

the companies with specific needs. This center will engage the critical infrastructure

companies through mechanisms such as industry associations and consortia, bridging the gap and connecting companies with researchers and developers as required.

In addition, the IAIP Directorate will be the chief customer to the center and will

deliver needs and requirements based on their interaction with the critical infrastructure sectors.

The protection of sensitive critical infrastructure information is recognized as an

overarching issue of high importance, not only within the context of cyber security

R&D but across the Department. In accordance with the authorities provided in the

Homeland Security Act of 2002, the IAIP Directorate developed proposed procedures

for handling Critical Infrastructure Information. The procedures detail the receipt,

care, storage and marking of the submitted data. These proposed procedures were

released for public comment and are now undergoing final refinement. Once these

procedures are finalized, the Science and Technology Directorate will adhere to

those policies to ensure that critical infrastructure information voluntarily submitted by the private sector is handled appropriately and protected accordingly.

Q6. How will DHS work cooperatively with other agencies on cyber security research

and development? Specifically,

Q6a. You testified that a Memorandum of Understanding between National Institute

of Standards and Technology (NIST) and DHS will be signed shortly. Will

DHS provide funding to NIST for specific projects? Are there particular areas

in cyber security that you are planning to work together on?

Q6b. Will DHS provide funding to support existing or new cyber security grant programs at the National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research

Projects Agency?

Q6c. Is DHS drawing on the expertise in the Infosec Research Council (IRC) and the

High Confidence Software and Systems group within the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Interagency Working Group?

How will DHS be interacting with these interagency groups?

A6a,b,c. The Science and Technology Directorate’s cyber security portfolio manager

has been, and continues to be, in dialogue with the National Science Foundation

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and NIST, both individually and cooperatively. NSF, NIST and DHS (S&T) recently

agreed to formally organize their efforts and work collaboratively to identify the

R&D agenda appropriate to each agency. As stated previously, proposals are pending from NIST and others; until these are actual awards, it is not appropriate to

estimate the amount that will be awarded to NIST. The Science and Technology Directorate will provide co-funding to NSF and NIST on those programs determined

to meet requirements of our customers. At present, there are no plans to fund new

or existing cyber security grant programs at the Defense Advanced Research

Projects Agency (DARPA).

The Science and Technology Directorate is also participating with the Infosec Research Council (IRC) where interaction across the government cyber security R&D

stakeholders is accomplished. In addition, we participate in the newly established

National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Interagency Working Group on

Critical Infrastructure Information Protection, created as an interagency R&D coordination working group. The Department of Homeland Security is not formally

part of the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

Interagency Working Group but does interact with the relevant programs through

the Infosec Research Council and the Interagency Working Group on Critical Infrastructure Information Protection.

Q7. The Cyber Security Research and Development Act makes the National Science

Foundation (NSF) the lead agency for cyber security research and development,

as Dr. Colwell testified at the hearing. In what ways are you interacting with

NSF as it acts as the lead agency in this area? Does NSF review your budget

proposal for programs in this area? Does NSF lead the agencies in a group effort

to determine overall cyber security research and development priorities, and if

so, how?

A7. As mentioned previously, the Science and Technology Directorate coordinates

regularly with NSF to understand the existing cyber security R&D programs, the

agenda and requirements not currently addressed, and identify the gaps. These

interactions take place via the coordination groups mentioned in the response to the

previous question, as well as on an individual basis. The Science and Technology

Directorate has not relied on the NSF to directly set the agenda for DHS’s cyber

security research and development. Rather, DHS’s cyber security R&D agenda is

being driven by R&D priority areas as determined by the Department’s mission and

scope, e.g., those areas related to the needs and requirements that support the technology necessary for the Nation’s critical infrastructures to operate and provide

services.

Q8. The Committee believes that it is important to train skilled professionals to execute information technology security in the private sector and at government

agencies, as well as scientists and engineers to perform cyber security research

and development. What do you see as particular workforce needs in cyber security? What actions is DHS taking or planning to take to provide education and

training in the cyber security area?

A8. The Science and Technology Directorate recognizes the need for cyber security

experts that are well trained in technology, science, policy and privacy concerns in

order to perform the advanced research and development of effective tools to protect

our information systems and networks. Particular workforce needs are wide and

varied in this area, ranging from programmers and developers that understand and

respect cyber security concerns, to network administrators with an understanding

of risk and appropriate security posture. While the mission of university education

and curriculum development at the university level is something that falls more

within the scope of NSF than DHS, we hope to play a role in providing information

about industry educational needs to NSF. In addition, the S&T Directorate has a

Homeland Security Fellowships/University Program that is specifically focused on

encouraging and supporting U.S. students to study and enter fields relevant to

homeland security; the field of cyber security is certainly one of those fields we will

support. The Science and Technology Directorate will cooperate with IAIP, NSF, and

the Office of Personnel Management to encourage and facilitate the expansion and

interest in the CyberCorps program, the Cyber Defender program, and others that

may be identified, to address the Nation’s needs for a work force trained adequately

to implement effective cyber security programs in both public and private sectors.

By executing its mission well, the Department’s cyber security research and development center will attract some of the best and the brightest to this field.

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Questions submitted by Representative Ralph M. Hall, Minority Ranking

Member

Q1. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will establish performance criteria

for acceptable cyber-protection technologies. What exactly will this entail and

who will be responsible for certifying that these technologies meet DHS performance criteria? Also, will government procurement be limited to technologies that

meet these DHS standards?

A1. The Science and Technology Directorate will work with the existing processes,

and particularly with NIST, for the development, review, and establishment of appropriate performance criteria. The Department of Homeland Security supports certification by private sector bodies/programs that technologies meet established performance criteria; this position is consistent with existing ‘‘standards/certification’’

processes in other areas. At present, government procurement of cyber-protection

technologies is not limited to products that meet specific criteria.

Q2. DHS intends to establish a DHS R&D Cyber Security Center in cooperation with

NSF and NIST. How much funding will DHS allocate to this Center? What will

be the role of NSF and NIST in the Center’s establishment?

A2. DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate will establish a cyber security research center as an organizational entity. Once the center is established, we anticipate that a significant portion of the cyber security R&D funding will flow through

this center. NSF and NIST have provided valuable input in the establishment of the

center. The DHS Science and Technology Directorate expects to allocate funding of

$1 million to the Center in FY 2003 and $2 million in FY 2004 (these amounts are

approximates until contracting is finalized).

Q3. In establishing the near-term research agenda for DHS, which industry sectors

did you consult with in developing this agenda, and what role did industry play

in formulating your near-term research agenda?

A3. The Science and Technology Directorate developed its near-term cyber security

research agenda using the areas identified in the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace and from our chief customer, the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate. The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace was developed

based on extensive interactions with and input from the private sector, including

sector-specific industry groups, public town hall meetings, and extensive input received in response to a public draft of the document. Additional input came from

interactions with other agencies (such as those through the Infosec Research Council). Subsequent private sector input to cyber security research and development

needs and requirements will be sought through the cyber security research and development center.

Q4. You mentioned in your testimony that your directorate is taking steps to establish key relationships with the major cyber security R&D organizations. What

are these organizations; are they both governmental and in the private sector?

A4. The Science and Technology Directorate interacts regularly with the government cyber security R&D organizations both directly and through groups such as

the Infosec Research Council and the newly-established National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Interagency Working Group on Critical Infrastructure Information Protection (IWG on CIIP), created under the NSTC as an interagency R&D

coordination mechanism. Although DHS is not formally part of the Networking and

Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Interagency Working

Group Program crosscut, DHS does interact with the relevant programs in the

NITRD through the IRC and the IWG on CIIP. Government agencies that we have

interacted with include NSF, NIST, Defense Advance Research Projects Agency

(DARPA), National Security Agency (NSA), Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Defense (DOD), Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), Advanced

Research and Development Activity (ARDA), as well as Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. We have not yet initiated formal relationships with the private

sector; however, we are planning a workshop to include private companies in midsummer to start this process.

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ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Rita R. Colwell, Director, National Science Foundation

Questions submitted by Chairman Sherwood Boehlert

Q1. In your testimony to the Committee, you said that cyber security researchers will

be told about National Science Foundation (NSF) funding opportunities for centers, like the competitions for Science and Technology Center grants. However,

the Cyber Security Research and Development Act authorizes a program specifically for Computer and Network Security Research Centers. Will NSF run competitions specifically targeted at ‘‘Cyber Security Centers,’’ as required by the

Act?

A1. NSF is currently preparing a program solicitation entitled Cyber Trust; we expect that it will be released toward the end of summer, 2003. The Cyber Trust announcement will solicit proposals describing a range of types, including individual

investigator, small group and center-scale projects. Thus, cyber security centers will

be targeted in this competition. It is NSF’s intent to continue integrating centerscale projects into its existing research and education portfolio of activities at a rate

that will nurture and sustain the emerging cyber security community in academe.

Awards made in FY 2004 as a result of the Cyber Trust competition will complement awards in the agency’s current cyber security portfolio. As the Committee

may be aware, NSF is already funding center-scale cyber security projects. For example:

An Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) on Cyber Protection is currently being supported by an NSF planning grant. Building on a strong

partnership between Iowa State University, Mississippi State University and the

University of Kansas, as well as key industry partners including EDS, MPI Software Technology, and Amerlnd, this Center is planning to provide one of the first

facilities dedicated to creating a simulated Internet for the purpose of researching,

designing, and testing cyber defense mechanisms. By recreating critical components

of the infrastructure, end-users and developers will be able to test security configurations and help researchers from a broad range of disciplines examine the policy,

business, systems, and economic implications of cyber security innovations.

The Georgia Institute of Technology’s Center for Experimental Research on Computer Systems has two primary intellectual thrusts that examine systems survivability and security issues. The first deals with the development of a secure distributed software infrastructure. The second thrust deals with adaptive management in

distributed systems with a goal of tolerating failures, attacks, or performance overloads while maximizing system performance. This center works closely with the

Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC), supporting many of the faculty

in GTISC.

Although the merit review process is not yet complete for the FY 2003 ITR competition, it is increasingly likely that several center-scale awards will be made in

the area of cyber security. If interested, we would be pleased to share these awards

with the Committee after they are completed.

We plan to bring the leaders of these and future center-scale operations in the

cyber security area together on a regular basis and to publicize them as a group.

NSF’s Cyber Trust portfolio will include both the centers of excellence, as authorized

by the Act, and smaller-scale projects, including single investigator projects. At NSF

we have learned that a variety of coordinated funding approaches is most effective

in building a strong, coherent research and education community.

Q2. The Cyber Security Research and Development Act authorizes NSF to run a

broad, cyber security grants program for individual investigators and small

groups of investigators. You testified about ongoing work in this area and about

how cyber security research funding at NSF has increased from $15 million in

fiscal year 2002 to $30 million in fiscal year 2003. What is the schedule for

awarding the new grants to be made from the fiscal year 2003 funding and how

will proposals be solicited? Will there be a competition run specifically in cyber

security, or will the cyber security proposals be solicited and evaluated as part

of a more general Information Technology Research or Cyber Infrastructure solicitation?

A2. NSF’s FY 2003 competitions are drawing to a close at this time. Consequently,

the agency expects to make many new awards between now and the end of the fiscal

year.

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During FY 2003, the agency ran several competitions that specifically targeted

cyber security; these included the Trusted Computing program and the Data and

Applications Security program. These two competitions yielded over 100 proposals.

The proposals received have now completed the merit review process and NSF expects to make between 30 and 40 new awards before the end of this fiscal year.

In addition, the agency also emphasized the growing importance of cyber security

in a number of other FY 2003 solicitations and program announcements, including

the Information Technology Research (ITR) solicitation, the Embedded and Hybrid

Systems (EHS) program announcement, the Networking Research Testbeds (NRT)

program announcement and the NSF Middleware Initiative. Response to these solicitations has been strong in the area of cyber security. If interested, we would be

pleased to share these awards with the Committee after they are completed.

Q3. The Cyber Security Research and Development Act emphasizes the importance

of workforce development, and the Committee believes that it is important to

train skilled professionals to execute information technology security in the private sector and at government agencies, as well as scientists and engineers to

perform cyber security research and development. What do you see as particular

workforce needs in cyber security?

A3. In order to determine the workforce needs to meet the cyber security demands

of government and industry, NSF has held and will continue to hold discussions

with the higher education establishment, and government and industry IT leaders.

In June 2002 the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) hosted an

NSF supported workshop on cyber security education. This workshop examined the

role of the community colleges in the preparation of cyber security professionals. As

a result of this workshop, NSF has included cyber security education as a main component of the Advanced Technology Education (ATE) program. Through this program, NSF will be funding two projects related to cyber security, one Center of Excellence in Cyber Security Education as well as providing planning grants for two

more Centers.

NSF and NIST are planning an invitational workshop of academic, industry, and

government leaders to help assess the needs and identify the strategies necessary

to prepare a world-class cyber security workforce. In order to facilitate educational

innovation in cyber security, design concepts for new cyber security-related curricula

will be devised. Implementation strategies will be discussed to determine the best

way to deliver cyber security education to a broad audience.

The workshop will focus its efforts on strategies for workforce investments in

cyber security at the undergraduate and doctoral levels. It will also examine implementation strategies to support faculty traineeships in cyber security enabling recent Ph.D. graduates and current IT faculty to pursue academic careers in cyber security.

Q4. The Cyber Security Research and Development Act authorizes NSF to provide

funding for several activities designed to build this nation’s capacity for cyber

security education, both of operational cyber security professionals and of future

cyber security researchers. What steps has NSF taken to execute these programs,

specifically:

Q4a. Have programs been started to provide grants to institutions of higher education to establish or improve undergraduate and Master’s degree programs in

computer and network security and to increase the number of students in these

programs?

A4a. NSF has several programs that seek to establish or improve undergraduate

degree programs in computer and network security, and to increase the number of

students in these programs.

Based on the recommendations of the AACC workshop, NSF has included security

education as a major component of the Advanced Technology Education (ATE) program. Through this program, NSF is funding two cyber security projects and a Center of Excellence in Cyber Security Education as well as providing planning grants

for two Centers.

The Center of Excellence in Cyber Security NSF expects to fund in the next two

months is a consortium of eight institutions of higher learning (two universities, five

community colleges and one technical college) based in the Midwest. The Center will

be funded to develop and implement degree programs in IT Security and Data Assurance technologies at the certificate, Associate’s and Bachelor’s level. The Center

will also undertake a comprehensive outreach and support program to increase the

number of students from under-represented groups in IT professions. In addition,

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and four-year institutions throughout the region. This project has been approved for

funding but has not yet been announced to the winners.

The NSF-CompTIA Cyber Security Fast Track Training and Certification Program

was a initiated this year as a supplemental award to an existing grant. This supplemental award extends the mission of the National Workforce Center for Emerging

Technologies (NWCET) to include the Computing Technology Industry Association’s

(CompTIA) Security+ certification program for cyber security instructors. The supplemental training program will train and certify 80 faculty from 60 community colleges in a four month period. Participating faculty will produce best practices documentation once they have begun instructing students. This documentation will be

disseminated to other faculty via the web.

The Federal Cyber Service: Scholarships for Service (SFS) program is specifically

designed to address cyber security education issues. Though it preceded the Act, it

does address the law’s intentions for capacity building and increased student involvement in cyber security through awards to some of the country’s leading academic institutions. Since the inception of the program in mid-2001, SFS has made

19 scholarship awards and 35 capacity building awards for a total of about $52.9

million. As a result of this investment, the Federal Government will have recruitment access to the pool of 200 students currently supported at the 19 scholarship

institutions. By the end of FY 2004, NSF expects the pool of students to grow to

350. These individuals will all have degrees, BS, MS, or Ph.D.s in cyber securityrelated fields. All participating institutions have been designated as Centers of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education (CAE/IAE) by the National

Security Agency or equivalent. Four new schools have just been accorded Center

status and their students will enter the program starting this fall.

Q4b. Have programs been started to provide grants to institutions of higher education to establish traineeship programs for graduate students in computer and

network security research and to enable these students to pursue academic careers in cyber security after they graduate?

A4b. NSF’s primary support of graduate students in the cyber security arena is

through research assistantship support in cyber security research and education

grants. The increasing number of awards made in this area will support as many

as several hundred graduate students in computer and network security in FY’03.

It is expected that a significant percentage of these students will pursue academic

careers upon graduation with the doctoral degree.

In addition to support through research assistantships, graduate students can

also be supported through traineeships and fellowships awards via programs such

as the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) and the

Graduate Research Fellowships programs. NSF will continue to encourage the submission of cyber security traineeship and fellowship proposals through these programs, and will fund leading projects as they emerge. However the agency anticipates that as for other fields of science, graduate student support will mainly be

provided through research assistantships.

SFS institutions are supporting graduate students who are uniquely qualified to

enter academia as the next generation of cyber security faculty members. The program has recently been expanded to include active Ph.D. students. Plans are under

development to increase both the number of yearly graduates and the overall capacity of the national higher education enterprise to produce the most qualified graduates and potential new faculty members in the field of cyber security. At the same

time, the capacity building awards under SFS include activities that support the development of faculty members with expertise in the area of Information Assurance.

Q5. How does NSF work with other agencies that have cyber security research and

development programs?

Q5a. Do you coordinate overall federal goals with the other agencies, and if so, can

you describe some of the technical milestones or goals in workforce development?

A5a. NSF coordinates its investments in cyber security workforce development with

other agencies in the following ways:

The NSF Scholarships for Service program has helped the Federal Government

achieve several milestones that are key to cyber security. Through the Federal

Cyberservice Initiative, the Federal Government has increased access to talented

cyber security students prior to graduation. NSF has coordinated with the National

Security Agency (NSA) to make capacity building awards to qualified institutions

that wish to achieve certification as NSA Cyber Security Centers of Excellence.

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Awardees funded by NSF, NSA and the Department of Defense will come together

at the 2003 Cyber Service/Cyber Corps Student Symposium. The Symposium, to be

held at Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Computer and Communications Security, will allow students to network across programs, as well as with their faculty

mentors and senior Government officials. This coordinated symposium in which the

students take center-stage is an example of the success that federal workforce development programs in cyber security are enjoying.

NSF is sponsoring a conference focused on cyber security education to be held on

June 26–28, 2003. The third annual World Conference on Information Security Education (WISE3) will be held at the Naval Post Graduate School. The conference

brings together leaders in computer security education from around the globe. The

theme for the conference is ‘‘Teaching the Role of Information Assurance in Critical

Infrastructure Protection.’’

In conjunction with WISE3, the Workshop on Education in Computer Security

(WECS) will be held in the three days prior (also at the Naval Postgraduate School).

WECS is an opportunity for educators to learn about fundamentals and recent advances in information assurance and computer security, and to improve their instructional capabilities in these areas. This annual forum allows instructors to share

best practices and is a significant achievement in building the capacity of the Nation’s cyber security education enterprise.

Q5b. Two interagency groups were discussed at the hearing: the Infosec Research

Council (IRC) and the High Confidence Software and Systems group within the

Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Interagency Working Group. How are these two groups related?

A5b. The Infosec Research Council (IRC) is an effective knowledge sharing body.

Though it has no formal charter, the group has served as an important technical

coordinating organization. Agency representatives use this as a forum to discuss security implementations and development activities that they are pursuing, which

may have synergies with other agencies. This kind of informal coordination leads

to joint-funded projects and helps to avoid duplication of effort in security development and implementation programs.

The High Confidence Software & Systems (HCSS) Program Component Area

(PCA) of the NITRD–IWG concentrates on Research and Development of critical

technologies that are needed to enable computer systems to achieve high levels of

availability, reliability, safety, security, survivability, protection and restorability of

information services. The members of this subgroup take a long-term view. Integrating the high-confidence attributes that are essential to secure software and systems requires formal scientific design principles, large-scale testing and new diagnostic and forensic tools. The HCSS informs development of the Administration’s

budget in this PCA.

Though the two groups have a different mandates, NSF staff are active in both

and are working to find synergies along the path from research to implementation.

Q5c. Do the groups divide up tasks among various agencies? Do they monitor

progress in cyber security research and development at the agencies?

A5c. Interagency collaboration is well established in the area of cyber security. Program Officers involved in these interagency working groups share programmatic information and cooperate in jointly funded projects.

In addition to the committees that regularly meet to exchange information and

coordinate efforts discussed above, the federal cyber security enterprise sponsors

workshops and meetings with the research and education community. One example

of the cooperative effort in place is the NSF PI meeting to be held in August 2003.

This meeting, held in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), will be open to all

federal personnel with an interest in cyber security. This kind of interagency information sharing is common and ensures that Program Officers are cognizant of the

full federal portfolio of cyber security activity. It allows them to monitor progress

made by other federal agencies and leverage it to their specific needs.

Q5d. You testified that the High Confidence Software and Systems group is working

to define the federal portfolio of cyber security research and development and

will identify gaps. When will that effort be complete? What follow-up actions

will NSF and the other agencies in the group take?

A5d. The HCSS group, which is co-chaired by an NSF Program Officer, is approaching cyber security in the federal portfolio as an ongoing program. This work has already begun, and though the work will never be complete (cyber security will be a

dynamic, changing research subject for the foreseeable future) that organization will

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have a consolidated portfolio statement that includes new programs to fill gaps in

the current portfolio by the end of the fiscal year.

The agenda will be organized around three interdependent topic areas: near-term

reduced vulnerability, next-generation embedded security, and interoperable migration strategies. NSF will seek to increase funding, basing our priorities on the portfolio items that the group identifies. NSF will then look for opportunities to share

funding with the other agencies involved in HCSS, CIIP, and IRC.

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ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Arden L. Bement, Jr., Director, National Institute of Standards and

Technology, Technology Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce

Questions submitted by Chairman Sherwood Boehlert

Q1. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has not yet begun

the grants to institutions of higher education that are partnering with companies

on cyber security research and development or the re-training fellowships to increase the cyber security workforce, both of which are authorized by the Cyber

Security Research and Development Act. How much funding would NIST need

to implement these programs? Will NIST request these funds for fiscal year

2005?

A1. NIST has provided twelve cyber security research grants in the past two years:

one to the Critical Infrastructure Protection Project; nine to various recipients under

the NIST 2001 Critical Infrastructure Protection Grants Program; and two to the

Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection (I3P) at Dartmouth College’s Institute for Security and Technology Studies, as described below. Note that, in addition, related awards have been made under the NIST Advanced Technology Program and Small Business Innovative Research program.

Critical Infrastructure Protection Project (CIP Project)

The CIP Project is a joint effort of George Mason University and James Madison

University to develop a nationally recognized program that fully integrates the disciplines of law, policy, and technology for enhancing the security of cyber networks

and supporting the Nation’s critical infrastructures. The consideration of all three

disciplines—law, policy, and technology—is what makes the CIP Project unique. The

CEP Project is funded by a NIST FY 2002 grant of $6.5 million. We expect to provide another $6.5 million in FY03 to fund this activity.

The CIP Project’s research uniquely and innovatively aligns scholarly research

with national goals and objectives. Current projects include the following:

Economic Incentives for Cyber Security: Working closely with Nobel Laureate

Vernon Smith, the CEP Project is developing software to conduct replicable human

use experiments to study how individuals create markets to share risk through selfinsuring cyber networks, secondary insurance markets, contracting, and standards

development. There are no similar products available for our nation’s critical infrastructure owners.

Securing the Internet Infrastructure: The CIP Project is developing a comprehensive ‘‘map’’ of our nation’s telecommunications infrastructure and examining how

connectivity and performance are affected by removal of critical cities (nodes) resulting from physical attacks on key infrastructure facilities. Presently, critical infrastructures owners do not have access to such a map for security planning or disaster

mitigation.

Cyber Attacker Digital Fingerprinting: The CIP Project is developing methods to

identify cyber attackers based on characteristics discovered during and after their

attacks using data mining tools and techniques. Additional research will examine

the complex intellectual property and privacy implications of this developing technology.

Network Security Risk Assessment Model (NSRAM): The CIP Project is creating

a tool (the NSRAMT) that will model, detect, and assess network vulnerabilities to

facilitate enhanced risk quantification, intrusion detection, and network security.

The NSRAMT improves upon existing tools by incorporating the time dimension

into the assessment of cyber vulnerabilities.

NIST Critical Infrastructure Protection Grants Program

In September 2001, NIST awarded $5M to nine grant recipients under the FY

2001 Critical Infrastructure Protection Grants Program (CIPGP) to improve the

robustness, resilience, and security information in all the critical infrastructures.

Under the competitive grant application process, we received 133 proposals requesting roughly $73M from applicants in both industry and academia. We selected proposals in intrusion detection, telecommunications, wireless security, electric power

infrastructure, and compiler security.

Funded research addresses a variety of topics to include tools and methods for

analyzing security and detecting attacks due to vulnerabilities introduced by merging of data networks (i.e., the Internet) and voice networks (i.e., the public switched

telephone network). Other topics addressed are attack detection for wireless and

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converged networks, security controls for protecting the North American power grid,

and methods for evaluating intrusion detection systems.

While results are still preliminary from the Grants program and some projects

will not be completed due to a discontinuation of program funding, important developments were made in wireless security, converged data/IP networks, and electric

power infrastructure security. Additional information is available via http://

csrc.nist.gov/grants/index.html

Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection (I3P)

The Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection (I3P) at Dartmouth College’s Institute for Security and Technology Studies is a consortium of twenty-three

academic and not-for-profit research organizations focused on cyber security and information infrastructure protection research and development (R&D). The I3P helps

protect the information infrastructure of the United States by developing a comprehensive, prioritized R&D Agenda for cyber security and promoting collaboration

and information sharing among academia, industry, and government. NIST participated in providing input to the I3P’s Cyber Security Research and Development

Agenda (January 2003) that identified the following as priority research areas:

• Enterprise Security Management;

• Trust Among Distributed Autonomous Parties;

• Discovery and Analysis of Security Properties and Vulnerabilities;

• Secure System and Network Response and Recovery;

• Traceback, Identification, and Forensics;

• Wireless Security;

• Metrics and Models; and

• Law, Policy, and Economic Issues.

Discussion of the I3P’s research methodology and details on each of these topics

is available in the I3P’s R&D Agenda at http://www.thei3p.org/documents/2003

Cyber Security RD Agenda.pdf

The activities of the I3P are supported by NIST grants of $3 million in FY 2001

and $3 million in FY 2002.

While these activities are not specifically identified in the Cyber Security Research

and Development Act, they demonstrate NIST’s commitment to cyber security research. NIST will do its best to fulfill the specific requirements of the Cyber Security

Research and Development Act of 2002 within present resources and through future

budget cycles.

Q2. At the hearing, you described the importance of standards for information security. What are some examples of these standards? How will NIST and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) be working together on such standards?

Will NIST and DHS be working together on communications for first responders?

A2. Examples of standards that are important for information security include cryptographic-based standards used for encryption (e.g., Advanced Encryption Standard)

and for digital signatures. Although not formal standards, other security specifications are also important, such as recommendations for security settings for specific

products and for security features for procured information technology products.

When appropriate, NIST and DHS will be working together on these standards

and other cyber security standards and specifications through collaborative research

and planning, formal exchange of personal, sharing of information, and joint private

sector outreach. All of these activities will be facilitated by the recently signed

Memorandum of Understanding between DHS and the Technology Administration

(TA) of the Department of Commerce. NIST and DHS will also be working together

on cyber security standards and biometrics through the American National Standards Institute—Homeland Security Standards Panel (ANSI–HSSP). The Chief of

NIST’s Standards Services Division co-chairs the ANSI–HSSP.

NIST will work with DHS to ensure that our work is complementary, while maintaining our necessary independence. Of course, DHS, like all other federal agencies,

can take advantage of NIST cyber security guidelines and standards to protect its

sensitive information and systems. Additionally, like other federal organizations,

NIST will invite DHS to comment and review NIST’s draft security standards and

guidelines. Our collaboration is furthered by having DHS membership on our Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board.

With regard to first responders communications, NIST and the Department of

Homeland Security have already begun to coordinate efforts aimed at improving the

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communications capabilities of first responders. NIST’s Office of Law Enforcement

Standards, in partnership with DHS’ Science and Technology Directorate and the

National Institute of Justice, will be hosting a Summit on Interoperable Communications for Public Safety at the end of June. The goal of the Summit will be to

gather all of the federal and national programs together that are in some way addressing public safety communications and provide an understanding on how the

various programs inter-relate, thus facilitating improved information sharing, coordination, and focus in this important area. In addition, NIST has been, and will

continue to work closely with DHS’ SAFECOM program, to provide scientific, engineering, and standards expertise to the public safety community.

Q3. The Cyber Security Research and Development Act emphasizes the importance

of workforce development, and the Committee believes that it is important to

train skilled professionals to execute information technology security in the private sector and at government agencies, as well as scientists and engineers to

perform cyber security research and development. What do you see as particular

workforce needs in cyber security? What actions is your agency taking or planning to take to provide education and training in the cyber security area?

A3. Workforce needs in cyber security include skilled researchers in the areas of

system vulnerabilities and in security technology, metrology, and testing. A larger

and more-skilled workforce in the area of systems operations, specifically experts

that can use today’s tools and techniques to better secure existing critical systems,

is also needed. The range of skills required is discussed in NIST Special Publication

800–16. (See http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/index.html) NIST has a role in

providing guidance on training; a draft NIST guideline is currently out for public

review. We work with universities (contributor/evaluator for the NSA Centers of Excellence program), with industry certification groups, such as International Information Systems Security Certification Consortia, CompTIA, and SANS, and with the

Federal Information Systems Security Educators Association to develop training

guidelines.

NIST provides education and training by hosting various security workshops and

conferences in the area of cyber security and related fields. For example, we hosted

a workshop on advanced public key infrastructure research in April. We are also

hosting a workshop on IT security and capital planning in June.

Q4. How does NIST work with other agencies that have cyber security research and

development programs?

a. Do you coordinate overall federal goals with the other agencies, and if so, can

you describe some of the technical milestones or goals in workforce development?

b. Two interagency groups were discussed at the hearing: the Infosec Research

Council (IRC) and the High Confidence Software and Systems group within

the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Interagency Working Group. How are these two groups related? Does NIST participate in both groups?

c. Do the groups divide up tasks among various agencies? Do they monitor

progress in cyber security research and development at the agencies?

A4. NIST works with DARPA, NSF, OSTP, OMB, NSA, and a range of other federal

and private sector organizations involved in cyber security research. In the specific

area of workforce development, NIST participates in the Service for Scholarship program by hiring students and interns. We assist NSA in reviewing their annual applications for their centers of excellence designation. NIST also has been assigned

new responsibilities under the Cyber Security R&D Act for awarding cyber security

fellowships. In addition, our current CIO recently served a two-year tour as Director

of the National Coordination Office (NCO) for Information Technology Research and

Development, reporting to OSTP. The NCO’s work involves twelve federal agencies.

The High Confidence Software and Systems (HCSS) Working Group is the most focused on cyber security issues.

NIST participates in both the Infosec Research Council (IRC) and the High Confidence Software and Systems group within the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Interagency Working Group. The IRC serves to

share research priorities and activities, specifically in the area of cyber security. As

its charter describes:

‘‘The INFOSEC Research Council (IRC) consists of U.S. Government sponsors

of information security research from the Department of Defense, the Intelligence Community, and Federal Civil Agencies. The IRC provides its memberVerDate 11-MAY-2000 22:12 Oct 04, 2003 Jkt 086992 PO 00000 Frm 00087 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 C:\WORKD\FULL03\051403\86992 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
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ship with a community-wide forum to discuss critical information security

issues, convey the research needs of their respective communities, and describe

current research initiatives and proposed courses of action for future research

investments. By participating in the IRC, sponsors obtain and share valuable

information that will help focus their information security research programs,

identify high-leverage, high-value research targets of opportunity, and minimize

duplication of research. The IRC will be a collective effort for the mutual benefit

and collaboration of the participating organizations and is intended to promote

intelligent information security research investments. While it is understood

that each participating agency will have its own research priorities, it is anticipated that the IRC will be able to identify high priority areas of research to

develop a common, shared appreciation of the important and challenging information security problems of the day.’’ (www.infosec-research.org)

The NCO’s HCSS Working Group is more broadly focused than just cyber security: (www.itrd.gov)

The National Coordination Office (NCO) for Information Technology Research

and Development (IT R&D) coordinates planning, budget, and assessment activities for the Federal Networking and IT R&D Program. This 12-agency collaborative effort pioneers fundamental advances in the critical technologies of

the Nation’s information infrastructure, including high performance computing,

large-scale networking, and high assurance software and systems design.

The NCO reports to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and

the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC). The NCO works with the participating federal agencies through the NSTC’s Interagency Working Group (IWG) on

IT R&D and six IWG Coordinating Groups to prepare and implement the $2 billion

Federal IT R&D budget crosscut. Since no one federal agency cites IT R&D as its

primary mission, it is vital for agencies to coordinate, collaborate, and cooperate to

help increase the overall effectiveness and productivity of Federal IT R&D. The

major research emphases of the IT R&D effort are called Program Component Areas

(PCAs).

The High Confidence Software and Systems (HCSS) Program Component Area

(PCA) concentrates on Research and Development into critical technologies that are

needed to enable computer systems to achieve high levels of availability, reliability,

safety, security, survivability, protection and restorability of information services.

Q5. The Cyber Security Research and Development Act makes the National Science

Foundation (NSF) the lead agency for cyber security research and development,

as Dr. Colwell testified at the hearing. In what ways are you interacting with

NSF as it acts as the lead agency in this area? Does NSF review your budget

proposal for programs in this area? Does NSF lead the agencies in a group effort

to determine overall cyber security research and development priorities, and if

so, how?

A5. We meet regularly with NSF personnel via the IRC, as described above. NSF

does not review NIST budget proposals. In addition, as discussed earlier, NIST’s

current CIO recently served a two-year tour as Director of the National Coordination Office (NCO) for Information Technology Research and Development, reporting

to OSTP. The NCO’s work involves twelve federal agencies, including NSF.

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Appendix 2:

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL FOR THE RECORD

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87

88

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July 8, 2003

CURRENT ACTIVITIES OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY

IN CYBER SECURITY AND RELATED PROGRAMS

1. Cyber Security Research Grants

NIST has provided twelve cyber security research grants in the past two years:

one to the Critical Infrastructure Protection Project; nine under the NIST 2001 Critical Infrastructure Protection Grants Program and two to the Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection (I3P) at Dartmouth College’s Institute for Security

and Technology Studies. Each will be briefly described. Note that, in addition, related awards have been made under the NIST Advanced Technology Program and

Small Business Innovative Research program, but for the sake of brevity, they will

not be included at this time.

Critical Infrastructure Protection Project (CIP Project)

The CIP Project is a joint effort of George Mason University and James Madison

University to develop a nationally recognized program that fully integrates the disciplines of law, policy, and technology for enhancing the security of cyber networks

and economic processes supporting the Nation’s critical infrastructures. The consideration of all three disciplines—law, policy, and technology—is what makes the CIP

Project unique. The CIP Project is funded by a NIST FY 2002 grant of $6.5 million.

NIST expects to provide another $6.5 million in FY03 to fund this activity.

The CIP Project’s research agenda serves as a unique and innovative approach

to aligning scholarly research with national goals and objectives. Current projects

include the following:

Economic Incentives for Cyber Security: Working closely with Nobel Laureate

Vernon Smith, the CIP Project is developing software to conduct replicable human

use experiments to study how individuals create markets to share risk through selfinsuring cyber networks, secondary insurance markets, contracting, and standards

development. There are no similar products available for our nation’s critical infrastructure owners.

Securing the Internet Infrastructure: The CIP Project is developing a comprehensive ‘‘map’’ of our nation’s telecommunications infrastructure and examining how

connectivity and performance are affected by removal of critical cities (nodes) resulting from physical attacks on key infrastructure facilities. Presently, critical infrastructures owners do not have access to such a map for security planning or disaster

mitigation purposes.

Cyber Attacker Digital Fingerprinting: The CIP Project is developing technological

methods to identify cyber attackers based on characteristics discovered during and

after their attacks using data mining tools and techniques. Additional research will

examine the complex intellectual property and privacy implications of this developing technology.

Network Security Risk Assessment Model (NSRAM): The CIP Project is creating

a tool (the NSRAMT) that will model, detect, and assess network vulnerabilities in

order to facilitate enhanced risk quantification, intrusion detection, and network security. The NSRAMT improves upon existing tools by incorporating the time dimension into the assessment of cyber vulnerabilities.

NIST Critical Infrastructure Protection Grants Program

In September 2001, NIST awarded $5M to nine grant recipients under the FY

2001 Critical Infrastructure Protection Grants Program (CIPGP) to improve the

robustness, resilience, and security information in all the critical infrastructures.

Under the competitive grant application process, NIST received 133 proposals requesting roughly $73M from applicants in both industry and academia. Proposals

selected were in intrusion detection, telecommunications, wireless security, electric

power infrastructure, and compiler security.

Funded research addresses a variety of topics to include tools and methods for

analyzing security and detecting attacks due to vulnerabilities introduced by merging of data networks (i.e., the Internet) and voice networks (i.e., the public switched

telephone network). Other topics addressed are attack detection for wireless and

converged networks, the development of security controls for protecting the North

American power grid, and methods for evaluating intrusion detection systems.

While results are still preliminary from the Grants program and some projects

will not be completed due to a discontinuation of program funding, NIST will still

produce important results especially in the wireless area, converged data/IP networks and security of the electric power infrastructure. Additional information is

available via http://csrc.nist.gov/grants/index.html

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Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection (I3P)

The Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection (I3P) at Dartmouth College’s Institute for Security and Technology Studies is a consortium of twenty-three

academic and not-for-profit research organizations focused on cyber security and information infrastructure protection research and development (R&D). The UP helps

protect the information infrastructure of the United States by developing a comprehensive, prioritized R&D Agenda for cyber security and promoting collaboration

and information sharing among academia, industry, and government. NIST participated in providing input to the I3P’s Cyber Security Research and Development

Agenda (January 2003) that identified the following as priority research areas:

• Enterprise Security Management;

• Trust Among Distributed Autonomous Parties;

• Discovery and Analysis of Security Properties and Vulnerabilities;

• Secure System and Network Response and Recovery;

• Traceback, Identification, and Forensics;

• Wireless Security;

• Metrics and Models; and

• Law, Policy, and Economic Issues.

A substantial discussion about the I3P’s research methodology and details on each

of these topics is available in the I3P’s R&D Agenda at http://www.thei3p.org/documents/2003 Cyber Security RD Agenda.pdf The activities of the I3P are supported by NIST grants of $3M in FY 2001 and a second $3M in FY 2002. NIST expects to provide a third $3M grant in FY 2003

to I3P.

2. National Research Council Study of Network Vulnerabilities

As called for by CSRDA, NIST is also moving forward with steps to fund, in collaboration with DARPA, a National Research Council study to review the

vulnerabilities and inter-dependencies in NIST’s critical infrastructure networks

and identify appropriate research needs and associated resource requirements. NRC

colleagues have already identified a study director and are ready to initiate this

study.

3. Security of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition Systems (SCADA)

SCADA computerized systems play a key role in controlling industrial processes

in the food, pharmaceutical, chemical, and oil and gas industries, and other critical

sectors of the economy. These systems, typically designed as stand-alone systems,

are now often networked and managed via the Internet. This means that they are

now vulnerable to the same panoply of security vulnerabilities that confront all

other Internet-connected systems. NIST’s work in this area is aimed at building

more secure industrial control systems to protect against threats by terrorists, hackers, disgruntled employees or anyone else intent on these vitally important elements

of the Nation’s infrastructure.

For example, in the area of SCADA systems used in electrical power generation

and distribution, legacy systems must be retrofitted with security hardware and

software. NIST is working with EPRI, the electric power industry’s research arm,

to identify precisely where weaknesses exist and to develop security requirements

for the real-time systems that control the power grid and other critical industrial

processes.

In the area of automated building control systems, work is addressing the hardening of a host of complex systems that control lighting, ventilation, fire alarm and

other critical systems. NIST is working with industry to develop security enhancements for building control systems and also with the General Services Administration to implement security features in government buildings.

4. Biometrics

The United States visa issuance and border entry-exit systems are required to use

biometrics to prevent unauthorized persons from entering the U.S. through nearly

400 air, sea, and land ports of entry. Biometrics are automated methods of recognizing a person based on physical or behavioral characteristics.

In response to mandates in the USA PATRIOT Act and the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act, NIST helped develop a report to Congress, submitted jointly by the Departments of Justice and State and NIST, on February 4,

2003, in which NIST recommended that at least two fingerprints and a face image

be used as the required biometrics. This recommendation was made as a result of

biometric tests that used hundreds of thousands of samples of real-world data obVerDate 11-MAY-2000 22:12 Oct 04, 2003 Jkt 086992 PO 00000 Frm 00094 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 C:\WORKD\FULL03\051403\86992 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
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tained from the State Department, the Immigration and Naturalization Service

(INS), the Texas Department of Public Safety, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

NIST has also obtained a system that models the FBI’s Integrated Automated

Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) and has tested this system. The results

provide accuracy measurements of the FBI fingerprint matching system, which is

also mandated in the PATRIOT Act. These measurements are crucial for determining how to best perform background checks of foreign nationals applying for

visas.

NIST has also been working on standards development for biometrics to provide

inter-operability among different biometric vendors. NIST developed and spearheaded the adoption of a standard for inter-operability and exchange of fingerprint

and facial image information. This standard is mandatory for data exchange between the FBI and state law enforcement organizations. Working through biometrics standards committees, NIST is developing image-based standards for face,

finger, and iris that will lead to inter-operability. NIST is also submitting its biometric evaluation methodology as a testing standard to the International Committee

for Information Technology Standards. Finally, NIST’s testing results are being

used to formulate the U.S. position on biometrics with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which establishes international passport standards.

5. Forensics

Law enforcement officials and cyber security experts need to sort through the

reams of files on computers in a timely manner to find evidence of terrorist and

other criminal activities and to find evidence of cyber security events. Moreover,

once digital evidence is uncovered, it is in danger of not being accepted in the U.S.

court system. In order to enable the investigation and the subsequent prosecution

in court, computer forensics must be based on sound, scientific practices that are

produced and validated by neutral third parties.

In response to this need, NIST, working in partnership with the National Institute of Justice, the FBI, the U.S. Secret Service, the U.S. Customs Service, the

DOD, and many State and local agencies, has developed two computer forensics

products: the National Software Reference Library (NSRL) and the Computer

Forensics Tool Testing (CFTT) Program. These products are used daily to help solve

thousands of cases, including terrorism investigations.

Besides helping solve crimes, the products also help defend digital evidence that

is introduced in court by prosecutors. The first high profile case to address this is

the case of alleged terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui. As summarized by CNN, ‘‘The

(prosecutor’s) highly technical report on the computers and e-mail search followed

a request by court-appointed defense attorneys assisting Moussaoui that computer

evidence be authenticated.’’ The ‘‘highly technical report,’’ filed by the Government,

relies heavily on NIST and specifically references the CFTT project.

Cyber security experts outside of law enforcement are also using these tools. The

MIT computer security researchers who set out to prove that significant confidential

information can be found on discarded computers used the NSRL as part of their

process. They found over 5000 credit card numbers, medical records and a year of

ATM transactions. See http://www.msnbc.com/news/859843.asp?cpl=l

6. Network Security

NIST’s efforts in Internet security research are focused on both near-term objectives of expediting significant improvements to the security and integrity of today’s

Internet technologies, and longer-term objectives such as exploring the use of quantum information theory to develop ultra-secure networking technologies of the future.

Our near-term research is directed at working with industry and other government agencies to improve the inter-operability, scalability and performance of new

Internet security systems and to expedite the development of Internet infrastructure

protection technologies. NIST staff is actively working with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to design, develop, standardize and test new protocols that

will make authentication, confidentiality and integrity services inherent capabilities

of all networks based upon Internet technologies. NIST has taken leadership roles

within the IETF in the specification of public key infrastructure, network layer security and key management technologies. Working shoulder to shoulder with industry,

NIST is contributing technical specifications, modeling and analysis results, research prototypes and test and measurement tools to the IETF community to expedite the standardization of ubiquitous Internet security services and to foster the

rapid development of commercial products.

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Another area of focus for the near-term efforts is the research and development

of technologies to protect the core infrastructure of Internet. NIST is working with

the IETF and other government agencies to devise means to protect the control protocols and infrastructure services that underlie the operation of today’s Internet.

NIST’s research and standardization efforts in this area include: extensions to the

Domain Name System (DNS) to add cryptographic authentication to this most basic

Internet service, and the design and analysis of protection and restoration mechanisms to improve failure resilience of core switching and routing infrastructures.

NIST’s future work in this area will focus on improving security and resilience of

core Internet routing protocols.

Looking further into the future, NIST sees the potential for new computational

paradigms to threaten the mathematical underpinnings of today’s cryptographic systems. In response, NIST is conducting research in the use of quantum information

theory to devise ultra-secure network technologies that are not dependent upon today’s cryptographic techniques. NIST is collaborating with other government agencies in the design and evaluation of quantum information network technologies,

ranging from physical devices capable of operating on single photons of a high speed

optical link, to next generation quantum key distribution protocols capable of exploiting these physical links to devise provably secure cryptographic techniques.

7. Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)

In the past NIST has done research on PKI, primarily on effective revocation

strategies and strategies for building large heterogeneous PKIs; however, today efforts are primarily focused on devising effective assurance tests for PKI components

and clients. Assurance testing is an important research topic because assurance

tests that are repeatable and meaningful provide a means for vendors to improve

the security quality of their products. NIST is attempting to develop specific pass/

fail tests and techniques for PKI assurance testing based on specific test requirements, and thus streamlining PKI security testing as compared to ad hoc conventional security assurance evaluation testing that requires a great deal of productspecific design analysis. There has been some success with this in Certificate

Issuing and Management Components (CIMC) protection profile, for testing certification authorities, which breaks new ground in several areas. Work is now extending into client testing, which is more challenging and technically complex.

NIST also hosts and cosponsors, along with Internet2, an annual PKI research

conference. Recently, informal collaborations were begun with investigators at the

Korean Information Security Agency (KISA). We are seeking to invent a secure authenticator for sensitive personal information in PKI certificates to enable the subject to authenticate personal information if he or she chooses to divulge it.

8. Quantum Information Systems and Quantum Cryptography

NIST is working on a scalable quantum information network test-bed for research

in quantum computing and cryptography. While current cryptosystems are extremely hard to break, quantum cryptography has the potential to provide truly unbreakable codes. A quantum information network is built to exploit the laws of

quantum mechanics. Present day engineering of computational systems (e.g., clock

speed for a processor, maximum size of memory) and implementation of algorithms

(including cryptographic algorithms) are limited by the laws of classical mechanics.

The results provided by quantum mechanics point out the potential for capabilities

for computing and communication beyond that theoretically possible with the known

laws of classical mechanics. This is the reason that quantum computation and quantum communication have become prime areas of research for applications for quantum mechanics.

NIST seeks to develop an extensible quantum information testbed and the scalable component technology essential to the practical realization of a quantum communication network. Quantum cryptographic systems are the first products of quantum computing research to advance to the commercial stage, with two products currently on the market. This market is expected to continue to grow, producing products for both government and commercial use. The testbed will demonstrate quantum communication and quantum cryptographic key distribution with high data

rate. This testbed, once developed, will provide a measurement and standards infrastructure that will be open to the scientific community and will enable wide-ranging

experiments on both the physical- and network-layer aspects of a quantum communication system. The infrastructure will be used to provide calibration, testing, and

development facilities.

Quantum cryptography offers several advantages over traditional methods, including stronger security, eavesdropping detection, and the ability to generate and distribute large amounts of keying material more efficiently than conventional key disVerDate 11-MAY-2000 22:12 Oct 04, 2003 Jkt 086992 PO 00000 Frm 00096 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 C:\WORKD\FULL03\051403\86992 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
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tribution infrastructures. NIST has developed a hybrid authentication protocol for

quantum networks, combining conventional and quantum methods. Authentication

is critical for commercially viable quantum key distribution. In addition, this research has led to the discovery of serious vulnerabilities in many proposed quantum

cryptographic protocols. Lessons learned from this research will assist quantum protocol developers in improving security, and provide the basis for incorporating quantum cryptographic module testing into the NIST Cryptographic Module Validation

Program for the FIPS 140–2 standard.

9. Wireless Mobile Device Security

With the trend toward a highly mobile workforce, the acquisition of handheld devices such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) is growing at an ever-increasing

rate. These devices are relatively inexpensive productivity tools and are quickly becoming a necessity in today’s business environment. Most handheld devices can be

configured to send and receive electronic mail and browse the Internet. However,

as handheld devices increasingly retain sensitive information or provide the means

to obtain such information wirelessly, they must be protected.

NIST’s efforts to date have focused on improving several aspects of security: user

authentication, policy enforcement, and wireless communications. For user authentication NIST has developed a framework for multi-mode authentication that allows

more than one authentication mechanism to contribute to the verification of a user’s

identity. For example, a biometric, such as voice input, may be required in combination with a security token, such as a smart card, before a user is permitted to access

the contents of a device. In addition, NIST has invented a visual means of authentication that not only is easier than passwords for users to authenticate, but also

significantly more powerful, and has contributed updates to an open source code initiative that allow smart cards to be used on certain handheld devices.

For policy enforcement, NIST has developed a system that requires users to

present a policy certificate to a device, as a means of moving from a restricted processing environment to one in which the privileges accorded a user via the policy certificate are enabled. Policy rules govern such things as application usage, file access,

and communications interfaces, including wireless communications. This mechanism

allows organization policy controls to be asserted on handheld devices, which typically are at the fringes of an organization’s influence, and was designed to tie in

with emerging Public Key Infrastructures.

For wireless communications, NIST has developed a highly-regarded publication

on Wireless Network Security, aimed at reducing the risks associated with 802.11

wireless local area networks and Bluetooth wireless networks that are commonly

used with handheld devices. In the six months since its publication, the guideline

has been downloaded over 120,000 times by users in over 50 countries.

Additionally, NIST is actively supporting the standards community in moving towards stronger, more robust security by integrating stronger, more secure cryptographic algorithms and their associated modes of operation into the next generation of the relevant standards. Two of the NIST 2001 Critical Information Protection

Grants were awarded in the wireless security area to the University of Pittsburgh

and the University of Maryland.

The University of Pittsburgh’s research is studying interaction between the survivability and security of wireless information architectures. As part of this research, techniques for evaluating the survivability of wireless networks were developed, secure wireless architectures were designed, and strategies for meeting survivability and security requirements were examined. The impact of security services on

performance, energy consumption, speed, and bandwidth were also simulated. The

researchers demonstrated the interaction of survivability and security and proposed

methods for measuring and optimizing both of these requirements. These results are

expected to ultimately be applied to the design of critical wireless infrastructures.

The University of Maryland research is focused on a secure wireless testbed.

There are several goals of the Secure Wireless LAN/MAN Infrastructure testbed.

First, the testbed is testing the secure inter-operation between a multitude of different wireless equipment—both commercial and developmental. Second, the testbed

supports research designed to address integration issues arising from the new draft

security architecture for IEEE 802.11 (Enhanced Security Network), as well as security and management issues surrounding scalability, naming, and fraud control in

wireless metropolitan networks. Finally, the testbed serves as a wireless security

training apparatus for students, faculty, and other collaborators

10. Access Control

One of the basic tenets of IT security is controlling access to vital IT resources.

NIST has been actively researching for many years more cost-effective and efficient

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ways to administer access to critical system resources. In effect, NIST is answering

the question ‘‘who is allowed to do what?’’ Access control mechanisms can take on

many forms. Recognizing the inadequacies of traditional, labor-intensive, and errorprone approaches to controlling user access to sensitive information and the security

benefits that could be gained via breakthroughs in access control technology, a NIST

research team created a new approach to controlling user access, called Role-Based

Access Control (RBAC). What is most striking about RBAC is its rapid evolution

from a theoretical model to commercial implementation and deployment. An independently conducted NIST-sponsored economic impact study, conducted by RTI, estimated that the team’s work will soon be used by some 30 millions users for access

to sensitive information controlled using this technology. RBAC’s productivity advantages alone are often sufficient to justify its deployment. An outside study by

RTI estimated that RBAC technology saved U.S. industry $671 million, and that

NIST was responsible for 44 percent of the savings giving the taxpayer a 10,900 percent return on investment.

11. Security Guidelines and Standards

NIST continues to develop standards and guidelines in support of its federal responsibilities. Many of these are also used, on a voluntary basis, by organizations

in the private sector. Hundreds of thousands of copies of NIST guidelines have been

downloaded from the NIST Computer Security Resource Center. For example, over

400,000 copies of NIST’s Contingency Planning Guide for Information Technology

have been downloaded since its publication less than a year ago. In 2002–2003,

NIST published the following security guidelines:

• Use of the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) Vulnerability Naming Scheme;

• Federal S/MIME V3 Client Profile;

• Wireless Network Security: 802.11, Bluetooth, and Handheld Devices;

• Security Guide for Interconnecting Information Technology Systems;

• Security for Telecommuting and Broadband Communications;

• Guidelines on Electronic Mail Security;

• Guidelines on Securing Public Web Servers;

• Systems Administration Guidance for Windows 2000 Professional;

• Guidelines on Firewalls and Firewall Policy;

• Procedures for Handling Security Patches;

• Contingency Planning Guide for Information Technology Systems; and

• Risk Management Guide for Information Technology Systems.

See http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/index.html

NIST has also published the following draft guidelines for review by federal departments and agencies as well as other interested organizations and individuals

concerning:

• Guidelines for the Security Certification and Accreditation of Federal Information Technology Systems;

• Building an Information Technology Security Awareness and Training Program;

• Recommendation on Key Establishment Schemes;

• Recommendation on Key Management;

• Security Metrics Guide for Information Technology Systems;

• Recommendation for Block Cipher Modes of Operation: the RMAC Authentication Mode;

• Guide to Selecting IT Security Products;

• Guide to IT Security Services;

• Security Considerations in Federal Information Technology Procurements;

and

• Guideline on Network Security Testing.

See http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/drafts.html

In addition, numerous NIST Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) Bulletins

have been issued during the last year to provide guidance to agencies and others

on a broad list of topics.

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See http://www.itl.nist.gov/lab/bulletns/cslbull1.htm

NIST has also completed the Keyed-Hash Message Authentication Code as Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 198 and provided three new secure

hashing codes in the enhanced FIPS 180–2. These new enhanced secure hashing

codes are used to help users create more secure digital signatures. While on the subject of cryptography, late in 2001, Secretary Evans approved the Advanced

Encryption Standard (or AES) as a federal security standard and it is being actively

adopted by voluntary standards bodies and implemented by vendors. In fact, over

70 commercial implementations of the AES have already been validated though

NIST’s Cryptographic Module Validation Program. See http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/fips/index.html and http://csrc.nist.gov/cryptval/aes/aesval.html

12. Reducing Vulnerabilities Through Security Testing

Both research and security testing can help reduce vulnerabilities in the commercial IT products used to support the Nation’s critical infrastructures.

Research on identifying and correcting information technology vulnerabilities is

urgently needed. When new technologies are identified that could potentially influence customers’ security practices, NIST researches the technologies, their potential

vulnerabilities and also work to find ways to apply new technologies in a secure

manner. The solutions that NIST develops are made available to both public and

private users. Some examples are methods for authorization management and policy

management, ways to compensate for deficiencies in current wireless security standards, and ways to implement cryptography. Research helps us find more cost-effective ways to implement and address security requirements.

Security testing complements security standards by providing consumers with

confidence that security standards and specifications are correctly implemented in

the products that they buy. Implementing cryptography correctly and securely can

be complicated. However, unless it is correctly implemented, it may provide no protection. Therefore, in conjunction with the Government of Canada’s Communication

Security Establishment, NIST operates the Cryptographic Module Validation Program, which helps ensure correct and secure implementation of NIST’s cryptographic standards. The Cryptographic Module Validation Program has now validated over 500 modules with another 100 or more expected within the next year.

This successful program utilizes private-sector accredited laboratories to conduct security conformance testing of cryptographic modules against the cryptographic federal standards NIST develops and maintains. The testing by the laboratories and

NIST’s work with Canada involves access to unclassified public algorithms and test

suites, and not to any Federal Government operational cryptographic keys or classified information. Besides many organizations in the financial sector, two major U.S.

corporations, Boeing and VISA, see such value to the benefits of the testing program

that they now require CMVP-validated cryptographic modules to protect their sensitive information. The Government of the United Kingdom has also officially recognized CMVP-validated modules for use in their agencies.

To give a sense of the quality improvement that the program achieves, consider

that statistics from NIST’s testing laboratories show that 48 percent of the modules

brought in for voluntary testing had security flaws that were corrected during testing. In other words, without NIST’s program, the Federal Government would have

had only a 50/50 chance of buying correctly implemented cryptography!

In addition, in recent years NIST has worked to develop the ‘‘Common Criteria’’

(ISO/IEC 15408), which can be used to specify security requirements. These requirements are then used by private-sector laboratories, accredited by NIST, for the voluntary evaluation of commercial products needed for the protection of government

systems and networks. This work is undertaken in cooperation with the Defense Department’s National Security Agency in our National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP). You may be aware that the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace

calls for a review of the NIAP. Staff discussions have begun with NSA to identify

ways that might improve the process, through research, process changes, and to understand the resources needed for NIAP to fully succeed.

13. Security Awareness and Outreach

Timely, relevant, and easily accessible information to raise awareness about the

risks, vulnerabilities and requirements for protection of information systems is urgently needed. This is particularly true for new and rapidly emerging technologies,

which are being delivered with such alacrity by industry. NIST also hosts and sponsors information sharing among security educators, the Federal Computer Security

Program Managers’ Forum, and industry. NIST actively supports information sharing through conferences, workshops, web pages, publications, and bulletins. Finally,

NIST also has a guideline available to assist agencies with their training activities

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and is an active supporter of the Federal Information Systems Security Educators’

Association.

NIST sponsors the web-based Computer Security Resource Center (CSRC) to provide a wide-range of security materials and information to the community and link

to the Federal Computer Incident Response Center at DHS and other emergency response centers. CSRC now has over 20 million ‘‘hits’’ annually. On CSRC, one of the

most popular resources is the NIST-developed web-based tool known as ICAT that

allows users to identify (and then fix) known vulnerabilities for their specific software. ICAT provides links to vendor sites at which the users can obtain patches to

fix these vulnerabilities. This is important because many computer break-ins exploit

well known vulnerabilities. Over 5500 vulnerabilities are now catalogued in this

NIST on-line database that receives over 200,000 hits per month. See http://

icat.nist.gov/icat.cfm

14. Security Assessment Guideline and Automated Security Self-Evaluation

Tool (ASSET)

The Chief Information Officers Council and NIST developed a security assessment

Framework to assist agencies with a very high level review of their security status.

The Framework established the groundwork for standardizing on five levels of security and defined criteria agencies could use to determine if the levels were adequately implemented. By using the Framework levels, an agency can prioritize

agency efforts as well as evaluate progress. Subsequently, NIST issued a more detailed security questionnaire that most agencies used in 2001 to conduct their program and system reviews. Last year, in cooperation with OMB, a PC-based automated version of the security questionnaire was developed and made available for

use by agencies in 2002 to collect this information for annual agency security reporting to OMB.

15. Federal Agency Security Practices Website

NIST recently inaugurated the Federal Agency Security Practices (FASP) website

(http://csrc.nist.gov/fasp/), building upon past successful work of the Federal CIO

Council’s Best Security Practices pilot effort to identify, evaluate, and disseminate

best practices for CIP and security. NIST was asked to undertake the transition of

this pilot effort to an operational program. As a result, NIST developed the FASP

site, which contains agency policies, procedures and practices; the CIO pilot best

practices; and, a Frequently-Asked-Questions section. Agencies are encouraged to

share their IT security information and IT security practices and submit them for

posting on the FASP site. Over 80 practices are now available via the site. Some

practices have been modified so as not to identify the specific submitting agencies.

In accordance with tasking to NIST under FISMA, discussions are now underway

to develop a similar web-based service to share security practices from private-sector

organizations.

16. IT Product Security Configuration Checklists

The CSRDA tasked NIST with developing IT product security checklists that provide settings and option selections that minimize the security risks associated with

each computer hardware or software system that is, or is likely to become, widely

used within the Federal Government. In response, there are plans to hold a public

workshop to focus on developing a standardized checklist template to structure configuration and related information. Vendors, agencies, and other reputable sources

can use the template to construct and submit checklists that will populate a NIST

public web-based repository. It should be noted that because of vendors’ unique expertise, experience, and understanding of the security of their products, voluntary

participation by vendors in this effort will be particularly sought and valued. The

workshop will also serve to publicize NIST’s plans to obtain checklists and make

them available via the CSRC website. NIST will also be crafting ground rules for

the selection and rejection of submitted checklists. Discussions have already taken

place with representatives of DISA, NSA, NASA, and GAO regarding initial plans

and to gain their valuable feedback. NIST hopes to hold the next checklists public

workshop later this summer and unveil this new service by the end of the year.

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