RTAS CRTES CFP

Workshop on
Research Directions for Security and Networking in
Critical Real-Time and Embedded Systems

http://moss.csc.ncsu.edu/~mueller/crtes06
April 4, 2006
San Jose, California, USA

in conjunction with the
12th IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium
April 4-7, 2006


The objective of this workshop is to identify research problems
related to security and networking of real-time/embedded systems
deployed as control systems for critical infrastructure and as
mission-critical systems.

Scientific principles, disciplined engineering methodologies, and
well-defined formulations on system problems have helped the IT
industry to produce some of the most celebrated technologies in the
past two decades. As we see various technologies penetrate into every
aspect of our daily life, new issues and ever greater challenges begin
to emerge. Cybersecurity and networking are on top of the list of
grand technology challenges that will have profound impact on the
quality of information services to be delivered to the whole society.
In particular, embedded systems and real-time systems are widely used
in today's society. Critical infrastructure, such as the power grid,
power plants, telephone and the Internet itself, rely on such systems,
just as safety-critical systems (planes, cars) and mission-critical
systems (e.g., UAVs) do. Such control systems are increasingly being
connected to the Internet to facilitate maintenance and reduce the
cost of monitoring. Another trend is to increasingly rely on sensor
networks to provide input to these control systems via wireless
communication. However, the increasing connectivity of these
real-time/embedded systems to general computing services poses a
significant threat as they become exposed to potentially harmful
attacks. Cybersecurity and networking concerns must be considered to
counter these risks.

This workshop aims to identify these risks at a technical level. Its
objective is to determine the needs of current and future critical
systems and their integration into existing computing
infrastructure. The forum's purpose is to bring together researchers,
practitioners and partners from funding agencies to identify grand
challenges in this domain. Its intent is to initiate medium to
long-term projects addressing fundamentally novel approaches instead
of short-term, retrofitted solutions. The workshop results will be
compiled in a document to support agencies in their task to request
funds for research in this area.

Problems of interest (topics) for this workshop include, but are not limited to:
* Security threats to critical real-time and embedded systems, specifically
o SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems
o PCS (process-control systems)
* New challenges introduced by networking embedded systems
o Network connectivity of critical infrastructure
o Wireless data acquisition and sensor networks
o Real-time computing techniques for network security measures
o Real-time constraints on security provisions
* Trustworthiness of real-time embedded systems and networks

Submission:

Authors are invited to submit position papers describing grant
challenges (not their solutions) and new research
directions. Submissions are restricted to 2 pages. A selection of
these submissions will be considered for presentation during the
workshop. Electronic submissions are mandatory. Submissions should
be e-mailed to one of the workshop organizers. Preferred formats are
PDF or PostScript.

Important Dates:
Submission Deadline: Feb 24, 2006 at midnight EDT
Notification: Mar 13, 2006
Camera-ready: Mar 20, 2006


Organizers:
Frank Mueller (NC State University)
Peng Ning (NC State University)
Kevin Jeffay (UNC Chapel Hill)

Panelists:
Helen Gill (NSF)
More TBA


Advisory Committee:

Cathy Gebotys (Waterloo)
Al Mok (UT Austin)
Kang Shin (Michigan)
Sang Son (UVA)
Eugene Spafford (Purdue)
John Stankovic (UVA)
Janos Sztipanovits (Vanderbilt)
Gene Tsu*** (UC Irvine)
Wayne Wolf (Princeton)
more TBA





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