This project explores a clean-slate approach to securing critical services in emerging Software-Defined computing and networking systems Infrastructure (SDI). The project explores a new, elastic and flexible security approach as part of a proposed Elastic Placement, Posture and Performance (EP3) framework. In EP3, elasticity applies to the amount of processing available to perform security tasks, as well as to the types of policy and the placement where the processing occurs. The proposed research addresses flexible security infrastructure in three ways. First, a research thrust will design a data plane with greater verifiability and confidentiality associated with in-network computation tasks. This gives network administrators greater flexibility in moving security critical processing to anywhere in the network. A second research task will be to develop a control plane that leverages placement flexibility to dynamically launch defenses as needed. Finally, the project team will develop a set of novel SDI-inspired security capabilities that highlight the benefits of elasticity in placement, posture and performance.
This research activity will develop and disseminate a set of open-source tools, modeling abstractions, algorithm designs, and prototype implementations that will dramatically reduce the time to deploy their techniques in current and future SDI deployments. The project team will also make the research results useful as an educational resource for students, and plan to integrate the outputs of the interdisciplinary research in key course projects in multiple classes spanning security, networking, and systems. The project will actively encourage research participation from underrepresented groups, and work closely with leading industry collaborators to evaluate the proposed techniques and deploy the solutions in operational settings.
