Centre for Secure Information Technologies - Tranche 2 Proposal

互联网（网络空间）是无限知识的源泉，是不受国界、法律、法规或语言限制的不断发展的人工制品，是一个具有商业、政治和犯罪利益的社区。互联网有20亿互联网用户，有2.34亿个网站，每天发送2500亿封电子邮件。很难说互联网会变成什么样子，但我们可以看到一个互联网将被用于辅助生活的世界；让电脑驾驶我们的汽车，监控和管理我们的健康。几乎可以肯定，互联网也将成为一种个人助理；安排我们的一天，建议我们什么时候该吃饭，什么时候该睡觉，该做什么。我们可以肯定的一件事是，互联网的复杂性和能力继续呈指数级增长，正如它的安全性一样；信息、基础设施和公民同样需要先进和智能的能力。尽管互联网是一个正常运转的社会的核心，但网络空间并没有得到保护，网络威胁已经演变成全球性的犯罪企业。2011年2月，英国内阁办公室宣布，网络犯罪每年给英国造成270亿英镑的损失。与互联网相关的风险从个人延伸到国家。一台未受保护的个人电脑在连接到互联网的几分钟内就会被恶意软件感染，去年对伊朗发电厂的Stuxnet病毒攻击表明，互联网正在被民族国家用于网络战争。然而，互联网安全目前要么是那些愿意为安全工具和服务付费的人的特权，要么是那些拥有了解技术和威胁的工程技能的人的特权。应该做些什么？CSIT的研究有一个愿景，即互联网安全应该为所有人提供。当信息通过网络传播时，应该清除和过滤恶意软件，并对犯罪活动进行监管。一个类似的例子是将水作为一种公用事业来提供。我们相信，当我们打开水龙头时，我们喝的水是安全而纯净的，我们没有在水龙头上安装过滤器。当我们在家里打开互联网时，我们也应该相信，提供互联网的机制本身就会净化内容。CSIT的核心是使当前和未来的所有IT解决方案都安全的长期挑战。资讯科技学院正成为世界级的研究及创新中心，在保安资讯科技方面取得重大突破，并在创新及商业化方面取得令人振奋的发展。当电子传感器设备和闭路电视摄像机联网并与计算机处理相结合时，IT就成为物理基础设施保护领域的强大工具，包括火灾监控、资产跟踪和入侵检测。因此，虽然IT安全本身通常是防御病毒程序自动攻击的问题，但资产保护IT是协助人类操作员的工具。用于基础设施系统的IT系统本身必须是安全的，尤其是因为个人生物识别数据正越来越多地作为解决方案的一部分推出。CSIT的驱动目标是战略性地将英国工业定位在安全IT领域的前沿，因为该领域是一个关键的、新兴的、快速增长的领域，对社会的安全和保障有更广泛的好处。作为女王大学的一部分，CSIT有着非常成功的产业合作和衍生公司的形成记录，因此，CSIT很好地建立了强大的商业和学术合作伙伴关系，创造了持续的知识转移机会，具有可实现的短期研究转移里程碑，加上令人兴奋的重大突破机会，并确保英国工业的商业机会。

The Internet (Cyber space) is a source of infinite knowledge, an evolving artefact unconstrained by national borders, law, regulations or languages and a community with commercial, political and criminal interests. The Internet has 2 billion Internet users, there are 234 million web sites and there are 250 billion emails sent every day.It is hard to say exactly what the internet will become, but we can see a world where the Internet will be used in assisted living; allowing computers to drive our cars and monitoring and managing our health. The Internet will almost certainly also become a personal assistant; scheduling our day, advising us when we should eat, when we should sleep and what we should do. One thing we can be sure of is that the complexity and capability of the Internet continues to explode exponentially and as it does securing; information, infrastructure and citizen will need equally advanced and intelligent capability.Even though the Internet is core to a functioning society, Cyber space is not protected and cyber threats have evolved into global criminal enterprises. In February 2011 the UK Cabinet Office announced that cybercrime cost the UK £27Billion per annum. The risks associated with the Internet extend from individuals to nations. An unprotected PC can be infected by malicious software (malware) within minutes of being connected to the Internet, and last year the Stuxnet virus attack on an Iranian power plant showed that the Internet is being used by nation states for Cyber war. Internet Security is currently however either a privilege for those who are willing to pay for security tools and services, or for those with the engineering skills to understand the technology and threat. What should be done?The research at CSIT has a vision that Internet Security should be available for all. As information is travelling through the network, it should be cleansed and filtered of malware, and criminal activity policed. An analogy would lie with the provision of water as a utility. We trust that when we turn on a tap, the water we drink is safe and pure, we do not have filters at the tap. As we turn on the Internet in our homes we should also be confident that the mechanism to deliver the Internet in itself cleanses the content. At the heart of CSIT is the perennial challenge of making all of the IT solutions, of today and tomorrow, secure. CSIT is becoming a world-class Research and Innovation centre, coupling major research breakthroughs in Secure Information Technology with exciting developments in innovation and commercialisation.When electronic sensor devices and CCTV cameras are networked and combined with computer processing, IT then becomes a power enabling tool in the field of physical infrastructure protection, which includes fire monitoring, asset tracking and intrusion detection. Thus while IT security itself is often a matter of defending against automated attack by viral programs, IT for asset protection is a tool to assist the human operator. The IT systems used for infrastructure systems must themselves be secure not least because personal biometric data is increasingly being rolled out as a part of the solution.The driving goal for CSIT is to strategically position U.K. industry at the forefront of the field of secure IT because this field is a critical, emerging and rapidly growing sector with its wider benefits for the safety and security of society. Embedded within Queen's University, with its very successful record of industrial collaboration and spin-out company formation, CSIT therefore lends itself well to a strong business and academic partnership, creating a continuous flow of knowledge transfer opportunities, with realizable shorter term milestones for transfer of the research, coupled with exciting opportunities for major breakthroughs and ensuring commercial opportunities for UK industry.