Risk analysis can play a large role in helping policy makers, system owners, security experts, and designers improve cyber security by providing insights into the most likely systems can be compromised, fail, and the potential consequences. However, many decision makers and security practitioners do not adopt or employ formal risk analysis methods that could help prioritize investments and mitigations. This talk provides an overview of formal risk analysis approaches and discusses some of the challenges in applying those methods to critical information systems and cyber infrastructure.

Jason Reinhardt is a national security systems analyst, with a focus on deterrence, strategic stability, quantitative probabilistic risk analysis methods, cyber and critical infrastructure security, and nuclear matters. He holds a PhD in risk analysis from Stanford University, where his research focused on probabilistic assessments of deterrence failure risk as a function of conflict parameters. Dr. Reinhardt currently serves as a distinguished member of technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories, where his work focuses on assessment and analysis of escalatory risk, deterrence in nuclear and cyber domains, nonproliferation, and the use of experimental wargames as analytic tools. He also researches on the development and application of risk assessment and analysis methods for critical infrastructure at a national scale. In previous roles, he managed a group of Sandia scientists and engineers that focused on technical studies to guide policy and decision makers across government as well as focusing on a variety of national and homeland security topics. He is also an adjunct associate professor of industrial engineering at Purdue University, where he teaches courses on deterrence and disruptive technologies, risk analysis, and systems engineering. Email: jasoncreinhardt@gmail.com

Host: Alan T. Sherman, sherman@umbc.edu. Support for this event was provided in part by the National Science Foundation under SFS grant DGE-1753681.  The UMBC Cyber Defense Lab meets biweekly Fridays 12-1pm.  All meetings are open to the public.  Upcoming CDL meetings: November 17 (1-2pm) Austin Murdoch (Sixmap); December 1, Enis Golaszewski (UMBC), Automatic cryptographic bindings; January 16-19, 2024, UMBC SFS/CySP Research Study