CAREER: Describing and Quantifying "Adversarial Thinking" For Cybersecurity

职业：描述和量化网络安全的“对抗性思维”

• 批准号: 2146129
• 负责人: Peter Peterson
• 金额: $ 81.64万
• 依托单位: University of Minnesota Duluth
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-06-01 至 2027-05-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2146129&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Describing; Quantifying; Adversarial; Thinking

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). Adversarial Thinking (AT) is widely recognized as a critically important ability for cybersecurity. The importance of AT has been widely discussed in the cybersecurity community, and many educators have created activities and exercises explicitly intended to strengthen AT in students to enhance their cybersecurity understanding and abilities. However, there is no broadly accepted description of AT or its components beyond describing it as the ability to “think like an attacker." As a result, there is no test to meaningfully quantify AT or the effectiveness of interventions designed to improve AT. To meet this important need, this foundation-building five-year project will create a description of the core components of AT. The project will use a consensus approach drawing on the knowledge and experience of a diverse group of individuals in the cybersecurity community. The project will create and validate a non-technical test for AT and use the test to 1) identify AT in individuals and 2) evaluate the effectiveness of exercises meant to improve AT. This project will shed light on fundamental knowledge about AT in cybersecurity, help identify the next generation of cybersecurity professionals, and give cybersecurity educators tools to improve the effectiveness of security education.Based on the widespread belief that AT is critical for security, the hypotheses of this project are that 1) critical components of AT for cybersecurity can be identified, 2) a non-technical test can be created and validated that measures these components, 3) the test can be used to perform rigorous research about AT, and 4) this research can be integrated with and inform cybersecurity education. To test these hypotheses, the PI will work with a diverse set of cybersecurity experts in a modified Delphi process to identify and describe AT's most crucial elements and publish the results. The PI will then create, screen for bias, rigorously validate, and publish the Adversarial Thinking Assessment (ATA), an instrument to measure AT ability. The test will not require technical cybersecurity knowledge and hence can be administered broadly. Using the validated ATA, the PI will conduct experiments to identify AT ability across various groups of students and professionals. The PO will also develop and evaluate new interventions to help individuals develop AT skills. The overall project will drive an iterative, five-year AT-focused curriculum development for a sequence of two security courses at the University of Minnesota Duluth. The impact of this project is a new foundation for research around the critical concept of AT in the context of cybersecurity education. This CAREER award is supported in part by NSF's IUSE:EHR Program which supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. This project is also supported by the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program, which funds proposals that address cybersecurity and privacy, and in this case specifically cybersecurity education. The SaTC program aligns with the Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Strategic Plan and the National Privacy Research Strategy to protect and preserve the growing social and economic benefits of cyber systems while ensuring security and privacy.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该奖项的全部或部分资金根据《2021 年美国救援计划法案》（公法 117-2）提供。对抗性思维（AT）被广泛认为是网络安全的一项至关重要的能力。 AT 的重要性在网络安全界得到了广泛讨论，许多教育工作者已经创建了明确旨在加强学生 AT 的活动和练习，以提高他们的网络安全理解和能力。然而，除了将 AT 或其组件描述为“像攻击者一样思考”的能力之外，还没有得到广泛接受的描述。因此，没有任何测试可以有意义地量化 AT 或旨在改善 AT 的干预措施的有效性。为了满足这一重要需求，这个为期五年的基础建设项目将创建 AT 核心组件的描述。该项目将采用共识方法，借鉴网络安全社区中不同群体的知识和经验。该项目将创建并验证 AT 的非技术测试，并使用该测试来 1）识别个人的 AT 以及 2）评估旨在提高 AT 的练习的有效性。该项目将阐明网络安全中 AT 的基础知识，帮助识别下一代网络安全专业人员，并为网络安全教育者提供提高安全教育有效性的工具。基于人们普遍认为 AT 对于安全至关重要，该项目的假设是：1）可以识别网络安全 AT 的关键组成部分，2）可以创建并验证非技术测试来衡量这些内容 组件，3）该测试可用于对 AT 进行严格的研究，4）该研究可以与网络安全教育相结合并为网络安全教育提供信息。为了测试这些假设，PI 将与不同的网络安全专家在修改后的 Delphi 流程中合作，以确定和描述 AT 最关键的要素并发布结果。然后，PI 将创建、筛选偏见、严格验证并发布对抗性思维评估 (ATA)，这是一种衡量 AT 能力的工具。该测试不需要网络安全技术知识，因此可以广泛管理。使用经过验证的 ATA，PI 将进行实验来确定不同群体的学生和专业人员的 AT 能力。 PO 还将开发和评估新的干预措施，以帮助个人发展 AT 技能。整个项目将推动明尼苏达大学德卢斯分校的一系列两门安全课程的迭代式、为期五年的以 AT 为重点的课程开发。该项目的影响是在网络安全教育背景下围绕 AT 关键概念的研究奠定了新的基础。该职业奖部分由 NSF 的 IUSE:EHR 计划支持，该计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生 STEM 教育的有效性。该项目还得到安全可信网络空间 (SaTC) 计划的支持，该计划资助解决网络安全和隐私问题的提案，在本例中特别是网络安全教育。 SaTC 计划与联邦网络安全研究与发展战略计划和国家隐私研究战略相一致，旨在保护和维护网络系统不断增长的社会和经济效益，同时确保安全和隐私。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。