System Security: Some Home Truths

In this talk, we discuss why improving the security of systems is a difficult challenge, and aim to motivate why it is a central interest in both the group’s teaching and research. Everyone is touched in some way by the failings of current approaches to security, and despite many decades of research, it is far from clear that the situation is improving. Indeed, many would say that it is getting worse. That is something of an indictment: since our discipline has provided the foundation of so much of the modern economy, we argue that it falls to all of us to work to improve the state of the art. The first step is to try to frame the problem. This is a fairly light-hearted talk to begin the term, and is intended to be accessible and relevant to all..