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The Trustworthy Resilient Universal Secure Infrastructure Platform (TruSIP)

The call for trustworthy and dependable (ICT and ICS) computing

In May 2009, the United States' President Barack Obama ordered a 60-day cyberspace policy review.  The project was headed up by Melissa Hathaway.  The subsequent Report identified the need and called for trustworthy and dependable computing infrastructure.  This explicitly included traditional Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems as well as Industrial Control Systems (ICS).  The Report has been a catalyst for wide ranging cyber security initiatives in the USA, including the January 2011 Department of Homeland Security Broad Agency Announcement (BAA 11-02).

Synaptic Labs’ Trustworthy Resilient Universal Secure Infrastructure Platform (TruSIP) is a direct response to the above calls and several project development white-papers have been submitted into that BAA 11-02 call. Specifically TruSIP proposes a trustworthy and dependable computing platform suitable that addresses the currently open hard security limitations of today's IT and ICS designs in one unified platform.

The TruSIP Proposal

The Trustworthy Resilient Universal Secure Infrastructure Platform (TruSIP) is our proposal to create a universally trustworthy and dependable computing platform suitable for hosting mission critical operations.  Our platform will uniformly deliver unprecedented confidentiality, integrity, availability, reliability, safety and authenticity assurances for all stakeholders against continuous and evolving insider and outsider attacks (i.e. all malicious actors), in a way that is credible and can be audited.  Furthermore our platform should facilitate business continuity in the face of natural or man made physical disasters.

TruSIP offers advanced information assurance controls against covert storage channel attacks, covert timing channel attacks and a wide range of side-channel attacks including cache-timing attacks mounted by both outsiders and privileged insiders.  Privileged insiders explicitly include the TruSIP deployment's technical and managerial staff, as well as all insiders involved in design, implementation and maintenance of the components used in that cloud deployment.

TruSIP (on it's own or in combination with other ICT Gozo Malta projects) is intended to address 6 of the 8 current hardest and most critical challenges (Global-scale IdM, Insider Threat, Availability of Time-Critical Systems, Building Scalable Secure Systems, Situational Understanding, Security with Privacy) identified by the United States Department of Homeland Security in their November 2009 Cyber Security Roadmap.  The DHS report says these core challenges must be addressed if trustworthy systems envisioned by the U.S. Government are to be built.

The TruSIP Proposal is 10+ million times more efficient than our nearest competitor

Our proposal is over 10+ million times faster than our nearest competitor, IBM's Fully Homomorphic Encryption (2011).  IBM's Fully Homomorphic Encryption will receive USD 20 million research over 5 years by the U.S. Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency with the goal of reducing it from 10+ million times slower down to 100,000x slower than unencrypted computation.

By way of comparison, TruSIP's commercially relevant performance is estimated at only 2.5x - 3.5x slower than unencrypted computation.

TruSIP Projects Road Map and Proposal Pages

Synaptic Laboratories and the Gozo Business Chamber (EU) have co-founded the ICT Gozo Malta cluster of excellence. This CoE will work in close collaboration with key Government and private stakeholders and leading International companies to develop Synaptic Labs' range of TruSIP project proposals (link to graphical projects map illustration):

• Trustworthy Resilient Universal Secure Infrastructure platform (link)
(with security against insider and outsider attacks)
- TruSIP for public and private clouds (link)
- TruSIP for smart grids/industrial control systems (link)
- TruSIP for card transaction platforms (link)


Last Updated on Wednesday, 11 May 2011 08:58
 

Synaptic Laboratories Website Executive Summary

One of President Barack Obama’s first acts on becoming President was to order a comprehensive review of cyber security in the USA.  When presenting the subsequent report, the President's public statement on the universal nature of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems and future requirements can be summarised as follows:

ICT is the critical enabler of our modern standard of living and way of life (used in virtually everything). Existing ICT systems do not offer the security and dependability that matches their essential nature.  Consequently, our entire modern way of life is at risk. It is essential that ICT systems evolve to offer similar levels of assurance as found today in coal mines and aerospace.

Since the Report was published, the essential requirements for future ICT systems have been studied and the hard open problems published in major Government initiatives in the USA, Europe and elsewhere.

Synaptic Laboratories Limited has been an active participant in several of these major initiatives, including participation at the ‘by invitation only’ USA National Cyber Security Summit (NITRD NCLY) that followed the USA President’s cyber review.  Synaptic Labs designs universal ICT platforms and models that resolve many of the critical hard open security problems that exist across today's ICT systems, including in computing platforms, identity management, and much more.

To provide one example, Synaptic Labs (public and private) cloud computing model (TruSIP) offers advanced security controls against covert storage / timing channel attacks, and a wide range of side-channel attacks mounted by both outsiders and privileged insiders.  Insiders explicitly include the cloud provider's technical and managerial staff, as well as all insiders involved in design, implementation and maintenance of the components used in that cloud deployment.  As of 2011, our proposal is over 10+ million times faster than our nearest competitor, IBM's Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE).  The U.S. Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency will invest USD 20 million research over 5 years with the goal of reducing the performance of FHE from 10+ million times slower down to 100 thousand times slower than unencrypted computation.  By way of comparison, TruSIP's commercially relevant performance is estimated at only 2.5x - 3.5x slower than unencrypted computation.