NSA Announces 2013 “Best Scientific Cybersecurity Paper” Competition
Despite being under fire for its highly controversial global surveillance programs, the National Security Agency (NSA) is calling upon the public to submit papers to help it make discoveries to support its intelligence initiatives.
The NSA announced on Monday that it is seeking nominations for its 2013 Annual Best Scientific Cybersecurity Paper Competition, and is looking for scientific papers that were published between October 1, 2012, and December 31, 2013, that show an outstanding contribution to cybersecurity science.
“The competition was created to stimulate research toward the development of systems that are resilient to cyber attacks,” the NSA explained. “Entries are judged on scientific merit, the strength and significance of the work reported, and the degree to which the papers exemplify how to perform and report scientific research in cybersecurity.”
While the nation’s iconic spy agency is looking for ways to develop systems “resilient to cyber attacks”, such research can also be used to help identify security gaps that both domestic and foreign intelligence targets may be vulnerable to.
As an agency tasked with identifying emerging threats to U.S. national security, the NSA is looking for discoveries that enable it to “achieve and sustain intelligence advances” against immediate and emerging threats to U.S. national security.
“This competition supports the greater NSA mission to strengthen and protect cyber space for our nation,” said Dr. Michael Wertheimer, NSA Director of Research. “It offers a great opportunity to share scientific methods and it was a remarkable success in its first year.”
Nominations will be reviewed by a panel of experts from institutions including In-Q-Tel, the Naval Research Laboratory, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, and others.
More information, including eligibility criteria, nomination procedures, criteria for judging and nomination forms are available here.
The competition is open to the public and is not limited to U.S. citizens. If a paper includes a reviewer as a co-author it may not be considered for an award, the NSA said.
The deadline for nominations is March 31, 2014 and winners will be publicly announced on August 1, 2014.
