Information Innovation Office (I2O)

The growing sophistication and ubiquity of machine learning (ML) components in advanced systems dramatically expands capabilities, but also increases the potential for new vulnerabilities. Current research on adversarial AI focuses on approaches where imperceptible perturbations to ML inputs could deceive an ML classifier, altering its response. More

Malicious actors are currently able to compromise and use with impunity large numbers of devices owned and operated by third parties. Such collections of compromised and conscripted devices, commonly referred to as botnets, are used for criminal, espionage, and computer network attack purposes (often a combination of all three). Recent examples of botnets and similar malicious code include Mirai, Hidden Cobra, WannaCry, and Petya/NotPetya More

Embedded systems form a ubiquitous, networked, computing substrate that underlies much of modern technological society. Such systems range from large supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems that manage physical infrastructure to medical devices such as pacemakers and insulin pumps, to computer peripherals such as printers and routers, to communication devices such as cell phones and radios, to vehicles such as airplanes and satellites. Such devices have been networked for a variety of reasons, including the ability to conveniently access diagnostic information, perform software updates, provide innovative features, lower costs, and improve ease of use. More

Managing complexity is a central problem in software engineering. A common approach to address this challenge is concretization, in which a software engineer makes decisions based on a set of apparently or almost equivalent options to enable the resulting code to compile. Concretization makes the process of software development more controllable, allowing the engineer to define and implement an architecture, divide the development tasks into manageable parts, establish conventions to enable their integration, and integrate them into a cohesive software system. More

Rapid comprehension of world events is essential for informing U.S. national security - a task that becomes more difficult as the amount of unstructured, multimedia information grows exponentially. Humans make sense of events by organizing them into narrative structures that occur frequently. These structures are abstracted into schemas, which are organized units of knowledge that represent a pattern of memory used in human cognition. More