Engineering Software-Intensive Systems
Abstract
While our systems are becoming more and more complex, primarily due to
the increasing use of software, our approaches to engineering for
safety and cyber security have remained relatively constant and are
becoming less effective. As one example, automobiles today contain
about one hundred million lines of software. Totally autonomous cars
will contain even more. The current approaches, particularly the
academic ones, do not scale and are too limited to be effective.
In this presentation, a new approach to safety and cyber security will
be described that is based on systems thinking and systems theory, as
described in the Leveson’s book, Engineering a Safer World:
Applying Systems Thinking to Safety. The new systems-theoretic
approach to safety is being used successfully in just about every
industry around the world and has been shown through both scientific
evaluation and empirical use to be both more powerful and less
expensive. More recently, it has been found to apply to cyber
security. Surprisingly, while it is spreading in industry, it is
little known in academic research.
Bio
Prof. Nancy Leveson is a professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, although she taught for many years in computer science. Dr. Leveson was an expert advisor in the writing of the Columbia Space Shuttle accident report and the Presidential Commission Report on Deep Water Horizon as well as less well-known accidents. Dr. Leveson teaches and consults widely on hazard analysis, design, operations, management, and social aspects of safety in a variety of industries including aerospace, defense, transportation, petrochemicals, nuclear power, and healthcare. In 2000, she was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.