SAND 2009-2007 Unlimited Release Printed March 2009 Complexity Science Challenges in Cybersecurity

Computers and the Internet are indispensable to our modern s ociety, but by the standards of critical infrastructure, they are notably unreliable. E xisting analysis and design approaches have failed to curb the frequency and scope of malicious cybe r exploits. A new approach based on complexity science holds promise for addressing the unde rlying causes of the cybersecurity problem. The application of complexity science to cybe rsecurity presents key research challenges in the areas of network dynamics, fault toleranc e, and large-scale modeling and simulation. We believe that the cybersecurity problem is ur gent enough, the limits of traditional reductive analysis are clear enough, and the possibl e benefits of reducing cyber exploits are great enough, that the further development of cybersecu rity-targeted complexity-science tools is a major research need.