Federal Grant Award Summary

The University of Oregon received a $1.2 million Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure under the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CFDA 47.070) program, effective July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2029. This CICI: TCR (Cybersecurity, Cyberinfrastructure, and Trustworthy Research) award funds development and deployment of multifractal address-structure anomaly detection tools designed to identify malicious and unsolicited Internet traffic targeting distributed scientific cyberinfrastructure. The core deliverable is a novel statistical methodology that analyzes connection address patterns to detect anomalies indicative of malicious activity, enabling science cyberinfrastructure operators to implement more flexible and granular security policies without relying solely on restrictive allow-listing approaches.

Project outputs include security analysis documentation of the address-structure detection approach, real-world validation through integration with the SAGE GRANDE testbed, and operational implementations with Link Oregon and the University of Oregon's network infrastructure to protect multiple shared science projects. The deliverables will provide participating cyberinfrastructure operators with functional tools, evaluation results, and operational experience to enable broader adoption of advanced malicious connection detection capabilities across the national scientific computing community.