Six Potential Game-Changers in Cyber Security: Towards Priorities in Cyber Science and Engineering

Abstract: The fields of study encompassed by cyber science and engineering are broad and poorly defined at this time. As national governments and research communities increase their recognition of the importance, urgency and technical richness of these disciplines, a question of priorities arises: what specific sub-areas of research should be the foci of attention and funding? In this paper we point to an approach to answering this question. We explore results of a recent workshop that postulated possible game-changers or disruptive changes that might occur in cyber security within the next 15 years. We suggest that such game-changers may be useful in focusing attention of research communities on high-priority topics. Indeed, if a drastic, important change is likely to occur, should we not focus our research efforts on the nature and ramifications of the phenomena pertaining to that change? We illustrate each of the game-changers examples of related current research, and then offer recommendations for advancement of cyber science and engineering with respect to each of the six game-changers.