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Information and Infrastructure Integrity Initiative

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The goal of the Information and Infrastructure Integrity Initiative (I4) is to extend Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's (PNNL's) research and development (R&D) capability to meet client needs related to the resilience of large-scale digital computer and control infrastructures, the communications within those infrastructures, and the soundness of information contained/ transported by the infrastructures. Significant National Security, Energy, and Open Science challenges need to be overcome, including the development and implementation of technologies that will enhance the preservation of supporting infrastructures, as well as technologies that assist in understanding and/or managing technologies that may cause infrastructures to fail.

• National Security – Primary challenges are how can we predict the presence of potential vulnerabilities in complex infrastructures that are critical to energy and security missions, or the potential for damage when adversaries gain new capabilities?
• Energy – The primary challenge is how can the broad energy infrastructure be made even more self-securing, so it can react fast enough to remain resilient under cyber attack without triggering negative, unintended consequences?
• Open Science (collaborations involving multiple institutions and crossing national boundaries) – Primary challenges are how can we ensure that data integrity and site security are maintained while supporting information availability, and that neither sensitive nor protected information is inadvertently leaked?

Our research approach will advance the use of prediction and associated technologies such as models, simulations, and behavior analyses/predictions to better understand the potential effects of existing and emerging threats and vulnerabilities.

Adaptation is employed to improve the timeliness of responses, as well as to allow independent, albeit bounded, responses to changing requirements, threats, and as a preventative measure. We will draw on cyber analytics to achieve advanced understanding of anomalies, situational awareness, and areas of potential cyber conflict.

The I4 science and technology (S&T) agenda will be advanced through core cornerstone concepts and the architecture for combining them. Two of the concepts, Predictive Defense and Adaptive Systems, which are briefly described below, will require significant research.

• Predictive Defense will involve development of ways to anticipate, model, and assess vulnerabilities, active threats, and to preserve information integrity and infrastructure resilience.
• Adaptive Systems will involve development of ways to provide timely, self-managed responses with bounded consequences.

A third concept, cyber analytics, will primarily use existing PNNL capabilities:

• Cyber Analytics will use PNNL's existing capability in decision-making and information-gathering as applied to cyber-security systems to support both better predictions and guide adaptive responses of the infrastructures.

The result will advance the outcome-improved R&D capabilities that will support establishment of resilient, large-scale digital infrastructures, and enhance the soundness of information contained/ transported by them. We call this Trustworthy Engineering:

• Trustworthy Engineering will involve development of ways to reliably design and maintain usable predictive/adaptive systems.