A Vision for Scalable Trustworthy Computing

The cybersecurity landscape consists of an ad hoc patchwork of solutions [1]. Optimal cybersecurity is considered “hard,” for various reasons: complexity, immense data and processing requirements, resourceagnostic cloud computing, practical time-space-energy constraints, inherent flaws in “Maginot Line” defenses as well as the growing number and sophistication of attacks. We begin by defining and abstracting the high priority problems including a crosswalk of the potential and co-opted solution space. Within that space, we claim that achieving scalable trustworthy computing and communications is possible via real-time knowledge-based decisions about cyber trust. Our vision is based on the humanphysiologyimmunity (HPI) metaphor and the human brain‟s ability to extract knowledge from data and information. We outline some future steps toward scalable trustworthy systems requiring a long-term commitment to solve the wellknown “hard problems.”