Research Interests
Dr. Fred Cohen
August 25, 2006
Fred Cohen is one of the world's leading researchers
in the area of information protection. He is best known as the inventor
of computer viruses and
virus defense techniques. But his work on information protection
extends far beyond the computer virus realm. In the 1970s he designed
network protocols for secure digital networks carrying voice, video, and
data; and he helped develop and prototype the electronic cashwatch for
implementing personal digital money systems. In the 1980s, he developed
integrity mechanisms for secure operating systems, consulted for many
major corporations, taught short
courses in information protection to over 10,000 students worldwide,
and in 1989, he won the prestigious international Information
Technology Award for his work on integrity protection. In the
first half of the 1990s, he developed protection testing and audit
techniques and systems, secure Internet servers and systems, and defensive information warfare
techniques and systems. All told, the protection techniques he
pioneered are now used in more than three quarters of all the computers
in the world.
His current areas of research emphasis are in (1)
deception and counter-deception, (2) creating "secure" systems,
(3) security metrics, (4) digital forensics, and (5) the role of
information in conflict and conflict resolution.
- Deception and counter-deception: This research is
focused on the development of a theoretical basis for the use of
deception for defeating cognitive capabilities of targets so as to
mitigate risks associated with computer network and perception
management attacks. Theories are tested with experimental testbeds,
resulting in dome of the most comprehensive scientific experimental work
to date in the information protection arena. Further details are
available here.
Dr. Cohen's recent book titled
"Frauds Spies, and Lies and How to Defeat Them" describes his views on
the broader subject area.
- Creating "secure" systems: This research is focused on
creating components with known security properties and composites
of those components so that the composites also have known security
properties. This includes understanding how to define security properties
of hardware and software and their operating ranges, how properties interact
when components are composed, creating fault models based on identified
failure modes, and developing methods for analysis and design to allow
systems to be generated with known and clearly testable surety properties.
- Security metrics: This research focuses on understanding what
can and cannot be measured and how those measurements can be used to
better understand how well surety properties are met for systems of
all sorts.
- Digital Forensics: This research focuses on the scientific
investigation of information related to criminal or civil proceedings
with the objective of providing sound and accurate means for the
collection, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of that
information. The research includes a wide range of issues, from
interpretation of audit trails to detection of tampering, to complete
and accurate collection of data, to crime scene reconstruction and
correlation of events across infrastructures.
- The role of information in conflict and conflict resolution:
This research surrounds understanding how actors apply cognitive
processes to affect interactions in conflicts of all levels of intensity
and ways to alter those interactions by selective induction or
suppression of content. It is closely related to the work in deception and
counter-deception and is particularly focused at this time on information
warfare methodologies and ways to mitigate conflict while minimizing violence.
Dr. Cohen's recent book on information warfare
is particularly relevant and represents his most recent published thinking on
the subject..
Fred has authored over 150 invited, refereed, and
other scientific and management research articles, and has written
several widely read books on information protection and related subjects.
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