Democratizing Systems Security

Abstract

AbstractAs systems security joins the top concerns of systems engineering, the availability and affordability of already scarce security expertise presents a resource barrier and raises questions about the nature of competency needed in the systems engineering team. Workshops in 2022 exploring the eleven strategies outlined in the 2021 roadmap for Security in the Future of Systems Engineering revealed one strategy as centrally synergistic with all the other ten: Stakeholder Alignment. Investigating means and effects of aligning stakeholders on security requirements led to the understanding that security expressed as loss‐driven needs and capabilities would be accessible to everyone, independent of how those needs and capabilities would be realized. This article makes a case for achieving stakeholder security alignment as a means to efffectualize security as a foundational perspective in system design and actualize security proficiency in the SE team.