Overview

Research & development activities are promoted under this programme through grant-in-aid support to recognized autonomous R&D organizations and academic institutions proposing to undertake time-bound projects in the thrust areas identified. A Working Group is constituted specifically for this purpose with experts in relevant areas. It provides full advisory support in implementation of this activity in cyber security arena through analysis of technology trends, identification of thrust areas and preparation of technology development plan as well as evaluation and appropriate recommendation of the project proposals received for financial support from DIT. Approved projects are regularly monitored by Project Review and Steering Group (PRSG) specifically constituted by the Working Group for each project.

Proposals are required to be submitted in the prescribed format. Projects get priority for financial support based on the area and relevance to the user organizations /industry. The grants are given to autonomous R&D and academic organizations. Funds are provided for capital equipment, software, manpower recruited specifically for the project and reasonable institute overheads, consumables, travel and contingencies.

Thrust Areas

I. Cryptography and Cryptanalysis

· -Algorithms and applications, software and hardware realization, FPGA, VLSI, DSP, smart cards for security, protocol analyzers

· -Authentication and authorization techniques, role based access rights, Biometric identification / authentication systems, Trust models and technologies that do not rely on a previously determined trusted third party, in dynamic environment

ii. Network and Systems Security

· -Virtual Private Network Security solutions

· -Security of key internet protocols (Ipv4 to Ipv6), Domain Name System (DNS) and Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), routers, servers

· -Security of wireless devices, protocols and networks

· -OS Security and trusted OS

· -Automatic generation of test suites, safe programming languages

· -XML security

iii. Security Architectures

· -Survivable architectures and intrusion tolerant systems that allow for degradation of certain capabilities while ensuring that critical functionality remains available

· -Autonomic systems that can sense and reason about their internal components and state and recovery oriented computing

· -Self-evolving systems/ Self-strengthening systems that can monitor themselves and adapt to change

· -Secure and survivable storage systems

iv. Vulnerability and Assurance

Vulnerability Detection and Analysis

· -Source / Object code scanning tools, Device (hardware, firmware, communication media, storage media ) scanning tools, Host and network based scanners, system configuration checkers

· -Tools and techniques for modeling interdependencies and vulnerabilities in systems

· -Risk analysis tools