Thursday, November 19, 2026

1:30 PM - 2:30 PM

Bradman Theatre

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Presentation Outline

Modern defense systems comprise tightly integrated software, networks, cloud infrastructure, autonomous capabilities and AI-enabled mission functions. Cybersecurity tools excel at finding vulnerabilities and detecting intrusions, but largely operate after architectures are designed or an attack is underway. As AI accelerates vulnerability discovery and adversary decision-making, defense organizations need Systems Security Engineering (SSE) approaches that build in resilience from the start. This talk updates the transition of AULIS, an AI-assisted SSE capability developed at Caltech’s NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory to protect complex, mission-critical spacecraft and ground systems. KAIperShield, a JPL/Caltech spinout, is now advancing this heritage capability for defense mission assurance. Rather than asking only "Where are the vulnerabilities?", AULIS asks how adversaries can influence mission outcomes, how cyber effects propagate through the architecture, and which decisions best preserve mission objectives under attack. Using system architecture, mission threads, trust relationships and dependencies, AULIS models how cyber effects propagate across software, hardware, links and mission functions, surfacing latent attack paths—shared dependencies, collapsed trust boundaries, excessive privilege, unintended control authorities—that conventional scanners cannot observe. During design, AULIS applies SSE principles such as domain separation, mediated access, least privilege and isolation to eliminate attack paths before deployment. During operations, that understanding lets operators visualize intrusion propagation, assess mission impact and weigh response options against AI-enabled threats. This talk shares progress on adapting NIST SP 800-160-aligned SSE principles for engineering trustworthy systems, extended through AI-assisted reasoning, from the space domain to defense systems, with examples illustrating the shift toward secure-by-design architectures and informed operational response.

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Speaker