EAGER: Exploring Trade-offs in Cyber Offense and Defense Through the Lenses of Computer and Political Science

EAGER：通过计算机和政治科学的视角探索网络攻防的权衡

• 批准号: 1444863
• 负责人: Joshua Rovner
• 金额: $ 21.05万
• 依托单位: Southern Methodist University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-09-15 至 2016-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1444863&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: EAGER; Exploring; Trade; offs; Cyber

This project examines the trade-offs governments face between engaging in cyber offense and defense. Governments may exploit a somewhat less secure Internet to gain intelligence and strategic advantage. But a more secure Internet encourages more participation online and reduces citizens' exposure to cybercrime. Thus governments face a difficult dilemma: Should they forego potentially useful cyber operations and work on strengthening the Internet in order to provide a global good? To answer this question, this project aims to construct a taxonomy of offensive and defensive cyber operations, describing the range of attack options and the possible collateral damage they may cause. The project's findings may benefit U.S. national security by giving policymakers a way of assessing the value of offensive cyber operations against the unintended consequences.Specifically, the proposed research project has three related components: The first component is a summary and assessment of different approaches to offensive and defensive cyber operations and classes of vulnerabilities. The second is an examination of the suitability of two political science theories to the debate over cybersecurity policy: hegemonic stability theory and offense-defense theory. To evaluate these theories in the cyber context, the researchers conduct qualitative and quantitative analysis of historical Internet resiliency, retrospective accounting of prior cyber operations, structured controlled comparative analyses, and counterfactual analyses of past operations. The third part of the project uses the foregoing analysis to develop guidelines for policymakers and intelligence organizations about when to disclose or stockpile vulnerabilities, and how to choose among several different strategies available to balance offense and defense. This project has the potential to transform how we understand the international politics of cybersecurity. It examines cyber warfare trade-offs by testing established political science theories with rigorous computer science analysis. This approach creates an opportunity for reaching an important theoretical breakthrough by deriving parsimonious measures of internet resilience and the offense-defense balance in cyberspace.

该项目研究了政府在网络攻击和防御之间面临的权衡。政府可能会利用不太安全的互联网来获取情报和战略优势。但一个更安全的互联网鼓励更多的在线参与，并减少公民接触网络犯罪。因此，政府面临着一个两难的困境：他们是否应该放弃潜在的有用的网络操作，并致力于加强互联网，以提供全球利益？为了回答这个问题，该项目旨在构建进攻性和防御性网络行动的分类，描述攻击选项的范围及其可能造成的附带损害。该项目的研究结果可能有利于美国的国家安全，为政策制定者提供了一种评估攻击性网络行动对意外后果的价值的方法。具体来说，拟议的研究项目有三个相关的组成部分：第一个组成部分是总结和评估攻击性和防御性网络行动的不同方法以及漏洞类别。第二个是两个政治学理论的适用性检查网络安全政策的辩论：霸权稳定理论和进攻防御理论。为了在网络环境中评估这些理论，研究人员对历史互联网弹性进行了定性和定量分析，对以前的网络操作进行了回顾性核算，进行了结构化的控制比较分析，并对过去的操作进行了反事实分析。该项目的第三部分利用上述分析为决策者和情报组织制定指导方针，指导他们何时披露或储存漏洞，以及如何在几种不同的战略中进行选择，以平衡进攻和防守。这个项目有可能改变我们对网络安全国际政治的理解。它通过严格的计算机科学分析来测试既定的政治科学理论，研究网络战的权衡。这种方法创造了一个机会，通过推导互联网弹性和网络空间攻防平衡的简约措施来实现重要的理论突破。