David C. Croson, Ph.D.Office of the Assistant Director

Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences

National Science Foundationdcroson@nsf.gov

George Mason University, June 2011

Cybersecurity Issues and the Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences

Cybersecurity Interest at SBE

• The Directorate of Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) at the National Science Foundation focuses on human behavior and the actions of groups and organizations.

• SBE has begun looking at cybersecurity issues – Main goal: advancing the underlying social science supporting

cybersecurity solutions

• No active solicitations or Dear Colleague Letters specific to Cybersecurity at this time.

• Encourage proposals to existing programs: http://1.usa.gov/NSFSBE– Disciplinary: Political Science, Economics, Sociology– SciSIP (Science of Science & Innovation Policy)– IOS (Innovation & Organizational Sciences)– DRMS (Decision, Risk, & Management Science)

NSF’s Goal: Through Collaboration,Advance Underlying Science

• Cybersecurity combines new technology with both old & new social science– Problems of incentive alignment, efficient risk bearing, and interdependent

security are studied in economics– Federations and security alliances evoke sociology and political science– Information overload and display techniques, as well as protecting against

social engineering, combine psychology with cognitive science– NSF’s focus: advancing underlying scientific bases of cybersecurity issues

• At Internet2 meeting (Oct 2011 in Raleigh, NC), session on SBE funding sources for cybersecurity research, followed by an open discussion on– collaboration among IT/CS/engineering faculty and social scientists– integrating social-science research knowledge into practical cybersecurity

issues (including those funded outside SBE)– identifying truly transformative ideas supporting future research

opportunities that meld disciplinary knowledge from multiple fields