Planning Grant: I/UCRC for Joining Center for Configuration Analytics and Automation

该奖项将有助于探索由北卡罗来纳大学夏洛特分校（UNCC）领导的配置分析和自动化中心新站点的可行性。该奖项将考虑将科罗拉多州立大学添加到乔治梅森大学（GMU）作为该中心的所在地。拟议的网站计划通过引入网络、软件保证、数据流、隐私和应用密码学等领域的专业知识来补充现有的活动。UNC/GMU CCAA侧重于企业IT系统、云/SDN数据中心和网络物理系统的网络安全风险和防御管理能力。规划中的CSU站点通过更多地关注基础设施安全和弹性、数据隐私和人为因素等问题，补充了现有中心的优势。如果成功，学生和教师将从事与工业相关的应用研究问题，这些问题可以在这个独特的领域为美国创造就业机会，并帮助从事中心项目的学生找到工业工作。新一代的IT系统更加复杂，与其他系统的集成程度更高，更具移动性，并且通过Internet进行了更多的连接，从而引入了错误配置、暴露和新漏洞的复杂来源。不可避免的和/或有意的人类与这些系统的交互引入了额外的脆弱性和错误配置的来源。拟议中的中心将引入由行业需求驱动的项目，旨在解决现实问题。

This award will help explore the feasibility of a new site addition to the Center for Configuration Analytics and Automation led by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC). The award would look at adding Colorado State University to George Mason University (GMU) as a site of the center. The proposed site plans to complement the existing activities by bringing expertise in the areas of networking, software assurance, data streams, privacy and applied cryptography. The UNC/GMU CCAA focuses on cyber-security risks and defense management capabilities in enterprise IT systems, cloud/SDN data centers, and cyber physical systems. The planned CSU site complements the strengths of the existing center by focusing more on these issues in the context of infrastructure security and resilience, data privacy and human factors. If successful, students and faculty will be working on industrial relevant applied research problems that could generate US Jobs in this unique area, and help with the industrial job placement of students working on Center projects. The emerging generation of IT systems are more complex, more integrated with others, more mobile, and more connected through the Internet that introduce complex sources of misconfigurations, exposure, and newer vulnerabilities. Unavoidable and/or intentional human interactions with these systems introduce an additional layer of vulnerability and source of misconfiguration. The proposed center will bring in projects that are driven by the needs of the industry and aim to solve real-world problems.