A New Model for Partnerships
By providing a testbed where new ideas and technologies can be tried out before being deployed, the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence encourages the rapid adoption of comprehensive cybersecurity templates and approaches that support automated and trustworthy business operations and ecommerce.
For many organizations that require complex IT systems—hospitals, government agencies, manufacturers, etc.—cybersecurity is a black box. Organizations buy systems and do their best to protect their assets but they often do not have the in-house IT technical expertise needed to address the organization’s full range of cybersecurity needs or the best path to cost-effective solutions.
Cybersecurity vendors and broader IT vendors do their best to meet their client’s requirements. However, few vendors get the opportunity to address an organization’s holistic cybersecurity needs. Typically, cybersecurity tools are applied in a piecemeal approach and as a result vulnerabilities can occur that are not known to either the user organization or its vendors.
The NCCoE will provide a state-of-the-art computing facility and researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to work collaboratively with both the users and the vendors of cybersecurity products and services. The Center will undertake carefully developed use cases—comprehensive test plans for proposed solutions to specific cybersecurity challenges—that will lead to integrated security templates including appropriate technologies, tools, policies, and practices to create a trustworthy cybersecurity environment based on measurable security components and practices.
The improved trust in cyberspace resulting from the center’s efforts will support the development and adoption of innovative business methods that improve operational efficiency, reap significant financial benefits for public and private sector institutions, promote entrepreneurship, and create new employment and career opportunities.
Key Center Goals:
- Disseminate new principles and mechanics underlying security standards, metrics and best practices for secure and privacy-preserving information technologies.
- Develop and test methods for composing, discovering, monitoring and measuring the security posture of computer and enterprise systems.
- Achieve broad adoption of practical, affordable, and useful cybersecurity capabilities across the full range of commercial and government sectors.
