Trusted CI Concludes Engagement with FABRIC

FABRIC: Adaptive Programmable Research Infrastructure for Computer Science and Science Applications, funded under NSF grants 1935966 and 2029261, is a national scale testbed that connects to existing NSF testbeds (e.g., PAWR), as well as NSF Clouds (e.g., Chameleon and CloudLab), HPC Facilities, and the real Internet. FABRIC aims to expand its outreach, enabling new science applications, using a diverse array of networks, integrating machine learning, and preparing the next generation of computer science researchers.

FABRIC received its initial funding in 2019 and is projected to go into operational phase in September of 2023. FABRIC reached out to Trusted CI to request a review of its software development process, the trust boundaries in the FABRIC system, and the FABRIC security and monitoring architecture.

The five-month engagement began in February and completed in June. In that time the teams worked together to review FABRIC’s project documentation, which included a deep analysis of the security architecture. We moved on to completing an asset inventory and risk assessment, covering over 70 project assets, identifying attack surfaces and potential threats, and documenting current and planned security controls. Lastly, we documented engagement findings in an internal report shared with FABRIC project leadership.

FABRIC also assisted with the Trusted CI 2021 Annual Challenge (Software Assurance) by participating in an interview with members of the software assurance team. The results of that interview will provide input to Trusted CI's forthcoming guide on software assurance for NSF projects.