CICI:TCR: Enhancing Security and Privacy of Community Cyberinfrastructures for Collaborative Research

Cyberinfrastructure (CI) systems, including high-performance computing and data centers, play a critical role in supporting research in academic institutions. As scientific endeavors become more complex and collaborative, it is necessary to enhance CI’s security and privacy aspects to address evolving threats. This project leverages an existing CI system as a development platform and integrate novel cybersecurity research to create a more secure and resilient CI environment. Specifically, the project focuses on developing advanced techniques for secure data management and computation within CI systems. It has three thrusts. In thrust 1: Protect Data in Centralized Computing, cutting-edge techniques are employed to safeguard the security and privacy of data in centralized computing environments. In thrust 2: Protect Data in Distributed Computing, state-of-the-art techniques are deployed to protect the security and privacy of data in collaborative computing scenarios. In thrust 3: Protect Data Computation, innovative statistical and machine learning-based schemes are developed to detect and mitigate memory denial-of-service attacks, ensuring the security of computation. By implementing state-of-the-art security protocols and privacy-enhancing technologies, the project aims to enhance the resilience of CI systems against evolving cyber threats. This project encompasses technology transitions in cybersecurity research, empowering CIs and enabling highly secure and trustworthy applications in scientific and engineering domains. It advances the state-of-the-art in CI security, paving the way for cutting-edge discoveries and innovations while ensuring the security of scientific data and computation. Additionally, it facilitates further research, experimentation, and advancements in the field of cybersecurity, and contributes to enhancing the security and privacy protection capabilities of the national CI ecosystem. This project provides comprehensive training opportunities for students, collaborative research prospects for graduate and undergraduate participants, faculty engagement, and involvement of K-12 students. Special attention are given to recruiting students from underrepresented groups to foster inclusivity and diversity. 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.