Secure Systems

Convenience,cost reductions, and ubiquitous connectivity provided by new networks and services come with new problems. Reliable information and communication services require reliable software and hardware. At the same time, new methods for infecting systems with various types of malware are growing in sophistication and require minimal barriers to entry for attackers. We can say that we pay a price for technological innovation by creating new security concerns as new attacks surfaces are introduced. The threats increase as the systems become more distributed and as devices and networks with varying levels of security protections frequently participate in the same processes. Widespread usage of common software and hardware platforms considerably simplifies the spread of malware. Frequent updates and change of software and system states can also be exploited. Hence, there is an urgent need to address these security concerns and we see increased global secure computing research efforts.

SICS addresses many of these security issues through building up a new research group, the secure systems group, primarily working with platform and network security issues. The goal is to establish an international well recognized research group within 3-5 years. So far, two research projects have been launched.