CESR: The Center for Evidence-based Security Research

Principal Investigator(s): 
Vern Paxson

The Center for Evidenced-based Security Research (CESR) is a joint project among researchers at UC San Diego, the International Computer Science Institute, and George Mason University. This interdisciplinary effort takes the view that, while security is a phenomenon mediated by the technical workings of computers and networks, it is ultimately a conflict driven by economic and social issues that merit a commensurate level of scrutiny. As a result, the goal is to tackle key social and economic elements of security: how the motivations and interactions of attackers, defenders, and users shape the threats we face, how they evolve over time, and how they can best be addressed. The NSF proposal "Beyond Technical Security: Developing an Empirical Basis for Socio-Economic Perspectives" details the scope and efforts of this project.

Funding for this project is provided by NSF Grant 1237265 from the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace program, as well as a variety of industrial sponsors and collaborators. Learn more at http://evidencebasedsecurity.org.