A Secure Future for Open-Source Computational Science and Engineering

TL;DR

This paper emphasizes the critical importance of integrating security practices into the development and maintenance of scientific research software to safeguard scientific integrity and national security.

Contribution

It advocates for embedding security considerations throughout the research software lifecycle and outlines future directions for enhancing software security in scientific computing.

Findings

Highlighting the growing importance of security in scientific software

Identifying vulnerabilities that threaten research integrity

Proposing security integration as a research priority

Abstract

Journalists, public policy analysts, and economists have called attention to the growing importance that high-performance and scientific computing have to national security and industrial leadership. As computing continues to power scientific advances in virtually every discipline, so too does it improve our economic productivity and quality of life. The increasing social, political, and economic importance of research software, however, has also brought the question of software security to the fore. Just as unintentional software errors can threaten the integrity of scientific studies, malicious actors could leverage vulnerabilities to alter results, exfiltrate data, and sabotage computing resources. In this editorial, the authors argue for the need to incorporate security practices and perspectives throughout the research software lifecycle, and they propose directions for future work in this space.