CRII

As mobile and network technologies proliferate, so does society's awareness of the vulnerability of private data within cyberspace. Protecting private information becomes specially important, since researchers estimate that 87% of Americans can be identified by name and address, if their zip code, gender, and birthday are known to intruders. The goal of this proposal will be to develop a new set of verification tools, algorithms, and interfaces that enable secure, effective and unobtrusive management of users' private information.

Increasingly medical devices are dependent on software and the wireless channel for their operations, which also pose new vulnerabilities to their safe, dependable, and trustworthy operations. Medical devices such as implantable insulin pumps, which are in wide use today, continuously monitor and manage a patient's diabetes without the need for frequent daily patient interventions. These devices, not originally designed against cyber security threats, must now mitigate these threats.

Advances in digital communication technologies, and their proliferation in recent decades, have had a remarkable impact on journalism. Security weaknesses in these technologies have put journalists and their sources increasingly at risk, hindering efforts at investigative reporting, transparency, and whistleblowing. Because of their willingness to be early adopters, and to openly communicate their issues, journalists provide an opportunity to identify security issues and requirements in new communication methods.

Software vulnerabilities are an important vector for malware delivery. The software updating mechanisms, responsible for deploying the vulnerability patches, are in a race with the cyber attackers seeking to exploit the vulnerabilities. Moreover, these updating mechanisms have multiple, potentially conflicting, design goals, as they must quickly deploy patches on millions of hosts worldwide, must not overburden the users, and must avoid breaking dependencies in the deployment environment.