Panel by CRE Workshop

Achieving Defensive Asymmetrical Advantage via Technical,
   Policy, and Organizational Means
   Dr. Paul Nielsen, Director, CMU/SEI
   Mr. Bob Cowles, former CISO, SLAC Accelerator National lab
   Dr. George Sharkov, Coordinator, Cybersecurity for the Bulgarian Government
   Dr. Rolf Reinema, Head, IT-Security, Siemens  [more...]

Cyber economics drives many of the decisions related to cybersecurity by both the defenders and attackers. It determines on the defensive side the technologies and procedures implemented to prevent and respond to cyber-attacks. On the offensive side, it not only determines the type of attack but also the effort expended to ensure its success. In short, it determines the asymmetric balance between the attackers and defenders. The Cyber Resilience Economics workshop will explore effects of cyber economics on this asymmetric balance and examine approaches to shifting adversaries’ current advantage in cyber conflicts in favor of defenders. It will bring together a diverse group of experts to advance the concepts and application of cyber economics as related to asymmetric advantage and cyber resiliency. This includes foundational and applied advances in economics, its effects on asymmetry and resiliency driving the essential system requirements for cyber systems including traditional IT, cloud platforms, cyber-physical systems, and critical infrastructure. This will serve to accelerate the recognition, adoption and application of cyber security resilience within industry, government and academia by addressing the key concerns of how these techniques and technologies can be realized within the practical constraints of cost, risk, and benefit.

The topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Foundations of asymmetric cyber advantage
• Defining practical cyber resiliency
• Technical & architectural approaches to gaining asymmetric advantage
• Metrics, measures, and economics of cyber resiliency & asymmetry
• Optimal balance between resiliency and security
• Adversary economics: assessing the value of impacting the attacker
• Frameworks for ROI analysis (cost, risk, benefit) to guide technology investment (research, development, and utilization)
• Integrated analyses of cyber resiliency & asymmetry with co-dependent infrastructures (e.g., power)
• Cyber resiliency related tools that are guided by economic factors for defender and/or adversary
• Use cases or case studies for defender and/or adversary that include economic factors