The Trusted CI Annual Challenge is a year-long project focusing on a cybersecurity topic of importance for scientific computing environments. In its first year, the Trusted CI Annual Challenge focused on improving trustworthy data for open science. In its second year, the Annual Challenge focused on software assurance in scientific computing. In its third year, 2022, the Annual Challenge focused on the security of operational technology in science.
The 2022 Annual Challenge on the Security of Operational Technology in NSF Scientific Research reinforced the notion that NSF Major Facilities, once constructed, can deploy operational technology that can have an operational lifetime of 15-30 years. However, there are typically no cybersecurity requirements during acquisition and design. In the 2023 Annual Challenge, Trusted CI staff will engage with NSF Major Facilities undergoing construction or refreshes in a hands-on way to build security into those Facilities from the outset. Trusted CI will directly support the planning for facility refreshes and construction with respect to operational technology and will particularly focus on the academic maritime domain, including supporting the acceptance testing of the NSF-funded Research Class Research Vessels (RCRVs) at Oregon State University, supporting the U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP)’s design of the Antarctic Research Vessel (ARV), and Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s design of the California Coastal Research Vessel (CCRV).
This year’s Annual Challenge is supported by a stellar team of Trusted CI staff, including Andrew Adams (Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center), Daniel Gunter (Berkeley Lab), Ryan Kiser (Indiana University), Mark Krenz (Indiana University), Michael Simpson (Indiana University), John Zage (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), and Sean Peisert (Berkeley Lab; 2023 Annual Challenge Project Lead).
