Mission Assurance
Successful missions from risk-informed decisions in design, operation, and sustainment
Systems and systems of systems, which operate with ever-increasing autonomy, must be designed and architected with the knowledge that they will accomplish missions as intended in contested and challenging environments. Our work aims to assure mission accomplishment, even in the face of adversarial behavior aimed at subverting it.
We develop and apply technologies that identify and manage failure modes with supporting, quantifiable metrics. We develop software architecture instrumentation to enable continuous monitoring of mission effectiveness during operations. We also create and prototype means to effectively adapt operation or degrade it in predictable ways while maintaining effective performance. Additionally, we investigate means to address the challenges arising when systems and software are combined in unforeseen ways for emerging missions.
Featured Work
Insider Threat
CERT researchers devise strategies to help you prevent and detect insider threats and respond if harm results.
Converting a Navy Weapon System from a 32- to a 64-Bit Architecture
The SEI provided an independent assessment of the risks of migrating a weapons control system deployed by the U.S. Navy from one architecture to another.
GraphBLAS: A Programming Specification for Graph Analysis
The GraphBLAS Forum is a world-wide consortium of researchers working to develop a programming specification for graph analysis that will simplify development.
Verifying Distributed, Adaptive Real-Time (DART) Systems
Distributed, adaptive real-time (DART) systems must satisfy safety-critical requirements. We developed a method to verify DART systems and generate assured code.
Featured Publications
The QUELCE Method: Using Change Drivers to Estimate Program Costs
April 19, 2016 • White Paper
Sarah Sheard
This report introduces the Quantifying Uncertainty in Early Lifecycle Cost Estimation (QUELCE) method for estimating program costs early in a development lifecycle.
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Dynamic Parallelism for Simple and Efficient GPU Graph Algorithms
December 09, 2015 • Conference Paper
Peter Zhang (Indiana University)Eric Holk (Indiana University)John Matty
Presented at the 2015 Supercomputing Conference, this paper shows that dynamic parallelism enables relatively high-performance graph algorithms for GPUs.
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Engineering High-Assurance Software for Distributed Adaptive Real-Time Systems
November 18, 2015 • Presentation
Mark H. KleinSagar ChakiDionisio de Niz
This presentation describes an evidence-based approach for producing high-assurance DART software involving multiple layers of the CPS stack.
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Edge Analytics: Analysis of Social Media to Support Tactical Users
November 18, 2015 • Presentation
William AndersonKeegan M. Williams
This presentation explores the architecture and implementation of Edge Analytics, discusses field trials, and presents findings from analyzing Twitter data related to the 2012 attack on the U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi.
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Verifying Distributed Adaptive Real-Time (DART) Systems
October 16, 2015 • Presentation
Sagar ChakiDionisio de Niz
This 2015 Research Review presentation describes the authors' research efforts in verifying distributed adaptive real-time systems.
DownloadHistory of Innovation at the SEI in Mission Assurance
The SEI has performed innovative research in C4ISR mission assurance for almost 30 years that has benefited government, industry, and academia. Learn more about a few of the highlights.
SCSS 2019 Explores Acquisition, Security, and the Supply Chain
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Enhancing Computing Power at the Edge
KD-Cloudlet, a tool for implementing tactical cloudlets, springs from years of research on cloud computing at the tactical edge. The SEI makes this tool freely available as part of its transition mission.
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Building Capability to Defend Against Malware
To analyze malware, SEI CERT researchers have developed a suite of tools based on a framework called Pharos, which is built on top of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's ROSE compiler infrastructure.
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Attacking Software Vulnerabilities
In 2014, the SEI CERT Division introduced the Tapioca tool to check Android apps for vulnerabilities. In the first year of use, Tapioca was used to check more than 1 million Android apps.
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Codifying Resilience Practice
After the 9/11 terror attacks, organizations sought greater operational resilience through security and business continuity. The SEI developed the CERT Resilience Management Model to improve operational resilience.
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Tailoring Risk Management Practice
Since the 1990s, SEI risk research has shaped standards for software risk management, enabling program managers in software-intensive programs to identify what could go wrong and mitigate those risks.
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Changing Software Contractor Selection Criteria
Through CMMI and SCAMPI, the SEI has made substantial contributions to software contractor appraisal and evaluation processes, strongly influencing government acquisition practices.
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Pointing the Way Toward a Software Architecture Discipline
The SEI contributed to a greater understanding of how architectural decisions affect the ease of modifying a user interface, introducing an important concept to the discipline of software architecture in the 1990s.
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