The Challenges of 21st Century Information Assurance R&D - A Perspective from a Large Scale Global Enterprise

Abstract

The Boeing Company, as a large scale global enterprise, operates one of the largest computing infrastructures in the world performing daily worldwide manufacturing, distributed collaborative/engineering, and massive international virtual enterprise integration for commercial airplane production. Additionally, Boeing also builds large number of highly complex and large scale defense and government systems. The challenge of information assurance in this environment is extremely high - not just to secure and protect, but also to enable safe and efficient operations of futuristic systems. In this context, I like to share some thoughts on 21st century information assurance R&D challenges - what's enabling vs. what's catch-up, what's relevant vs. what's irrelevant. Today's information assurance is going beyond just keeping people out; it has more to do with letting people in - the right people, the right time, to the right resources. Modern technologies create new social and business paradigms that require us to work more closely via infrastructure and Internet. Once connected, each needs to be brought directly to the right resources. As such, it is critical to also view information assurance as a key "business/society enabler", in order to extrapolate and innovate - from the R&D perspectives.

Bio

Ming-Yuh Huang (who goes by the last name "Huang") is a Boeing Fellow leading Boeing's Strategic Information Assurance R&D Program in support of the corporate enterprise and a wide array of large-scale commercial/military programs. Huang joined Boeing R&D in 1990. Before that he was with DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) R&D Artificial Intelligence Technology Center in Massachusetts. At DEC, he led an expert system development effort called ESSENSE (Expert System for Service Network Security), which led to one of world's first IDS (Intrusion Detection System) products - DEC's POLYCENTER ID. While with Boeing, Huang had led DARPA intrusion detection R&D project, co-authored IETF IDMEF (Intrusion Detection Message Exchange Format) IDS communication protocol with IBM Research and US Air Force Information Warfare Center. He was the program co-chair of RAID-1999 (International Symposium on Recent Advances in Intrusion Detection) at Purdue University, and the general-chair of RAID-2005 at Seattle. He was also the program-chair of NATO Advanced Research Workshop "Cyber Security and Defense: Research Issues" at Gdansk, Poland in 2005, and the program-chair of SADFE (Systematic Approaches to Digital Forensic Engineering) at Taipei, 2005. Huang was thrice invited by NSF and European Commission on defining US/EU information assurance R&D collaboration strategic framework. Huang received his B.S. in Physics in 1979, and did MS and Ph.D. study at University of Oregon Computer Science Department.

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