-
Critical Infrastructure Resilience
-
Focus on improving cyber resiliency for critical infrastructure and their communities through understanding
and researching the interdependencies between critical infrastructure sectors at all levels; improving
public-private partnerships; informing DOD, DA, and other agencies of the impacts of cyber incidents on
critical infrastructure and how those impacts influence Army operations; and providing an opportunity for
local municipalities to exercise cyber incident response.
The Jack Voltaic Cyber Research Project is an innovative, bottom-up approach to developing critical
infrastructure resilience. Developed by the Army Cyber Institute at West Point, this research assembles
critical infrastructure partners to study cybersecurity and protection gaps.
-
Information Warfare
-
Serve as the integrator of civilian and military research in the information warfare space, specifically
focused on the intersection between the social and the psychological domains. Seek to leverage partnerships
with military, civilian researchers, lawmakers, and practitioners in the IW space and synthesize
interdisciplinary research in order to shape Army leadership and influence emerging policy/doctrine for a
whole of nation approach in the Information Warfare environment.
Narrative Warfare - Understanding what culturally significant stories are important to Americans that
foreign adversaries may use to elicit an emotional response and behavioral change. Mementic Warfare -
The use of images and text have become synonymous with online social media culture. These simple images can be
weaponized to add humor to serious political themes to make them more palatable to a general audience.
Social Network Analysis - How are groups connected online to pass information and ideas, cause certain
items to become viral, and jump from platform to platform? Algorithmic Confounding - How are social
media recommendation systems being used to target specific members of a populace to relay ideas both organically
and through manipulation of those systems? Legal Aspects of Information Warfare - The intersection of
social media and the Law of War and the extent to which misinformation/disinformation amounts to an unlawful
intervention into the affairs of another State (nation) in violation of international law.
-
Cyber Operations Research (CORE)
-
The Cyber Operations research team focuses is on advancing the Army’s understanding of the Cyber domain
and its role in military operations through operations support, original research, education, and
organizational partnerships.
This is accomplished through:
- Support to units across the Army and DoD
- Exploration and research into electromagnetic manipulation and sensing
- Analysis of platform and sensor quality and trust
- Drawing attention to new avenues of development and operation through publication and discussion
-
Data and Decision Sciences
-
The Data and Decision Sciences research portfolio looks to create holistic and integrated solutions leveraging novel approaches for data engineering, fusion and processing, data science and advanced analytics, and decision modeling for data-driven decision making. The goal is to develop and apply novel computational, mathematical, statistical and cognitive methods, algorithms, software and decision-support tools to analyze large and heterogeneous collections of data to generate actionable insights that enable information advantage and decision dominance. The research explores new ways of conceiving of and executing Army, other Services, Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, and Nation data and decision science capabilities with greater reliability, performance, and scalability. As such, the research portfolio comprises the following six thrust areas:
- Battlefield, data-efficient sense-making to deliver decision speed
- Evolutionary, resilient artificial intelligence and machine learning
- Autonomous and augmented cyberspace and C3I operations
- Assured, trusted, robust, secure and intelligent C5ISR systems
- Information advantage via cognitive and societal computing
- Secure communications in the presence of adversarial behavior
-
Law & Policy
-
- The Law and Policy research team focuses on developing legal, policy and ethical frameworks that guide and
assist cyber operators in carrying out their missions. As authorities continues to be one of the primary issues
raised by cyber leadership, the research team seeks to help improve the policies, legal authorities and ethical
frameworks in order to improve timely and effective cyber operations that are guided by appropriate legal,
policy and ethical constraints.