Guest Lecturer Dr. Mike Burmester to Speak at CFITS

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Posted on March 21, 2014

Alice Jackson

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Dr. Mike Burmester, professor of computer science at Florida State University and director of the Center for Security and Assurance in IT, will present the March lecture at the USA Center for Forensics, Information Technology and Security on March 26.
            
Burmester will speak on “Reliable and Resilient Interdependent Infrastructure Systems,” 2:30-4 p.m. in the auditorium of Shelby Hall.

Burmester received his doctorate from the University of Rome in La Sapienza, Italy. His research interests encompass a range of security topics including privacy/anonymity, pervasive/ubiquitous network systems, cyber-physical system security, lightweight cryptographic applications, RFIDS and sensor applications, trust management and group key exchange.

Burmester will address how critical infrastructures such as transportation systems, power grids, communication networks, water management systems, medical systems and financial networks that are the backbone of the nation’s economy also are highly interdependent systems that integrate a tightly coupled and coordinated ecology of machines, sensors, computers and networks. This ecology is critically impacted by the social structures and the people that control it and access its services while it is also particularly vulnerable to technological failure, social and organizational breakdown and bad actor/malware threats. The nature of the services and the potentially devastating effects of failure highlight the critical necessity for solutions that provide effective protection.

Burmester contends there is a need for a complete understanding of the vulnerabilities of such systems and a framework that integrates the technical and social aspects of such systems with the impact of complex system failures on social, economic and political institutions.

According to Burmester, resiliency requires a socio-technical risk analysis that optimizes the way the system adapts in response to failure and maintains a social service equilibrium. His talk will address several of these issues, focusing mainly on resiliency against bad actor/malware threats.

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