Networked and distributed systems
Asset identity, connectivity, protocol behavior, decentralized systems, and the evidence required to reason about infrastructure.
Breakwater research
Research that becomes testable security.
Breakwater connects computer science, security research, and operational practice. We use research to clarify what can be measured, what must be modeled, and what remains uncertain.
Explore research themes ↓Research themes
Questions that cross product boundaries.
Our research themes reflect the systems Breakwater is building and the limits those systems must state honestly.
Adversarial systems
Attack paths, deception, mechanism design, and methods for challenging a security conclusion before an operator relies on it.
Cryptography and PQC transition
Observable cryptographic behavior, protocol interoperability, migration risk, and the difference between advertised and verified readiness.
AI/ML in consequential environments
How learning systems interact with clinical, operational, and security constraints where privacy, reliability, and human authority matter.
Teaching and evaluation
The method we teach shapes the systems we engineer.
The Cyber Analytics curriculum reflects work Nagu Thogiti has taught in MIT and GWU settings. It moves from discovery and enrichment through attack graphs, digital twins, PQC, federated intelligence, supply chain, deception, formal methods, and remediation.
Instructional demonstrations and simulations remain clearly distinguished from production evidence.
From research to product
How a research question becomes an operationally testable claim.
Research informs a product claim only after the evidence type, operating boundary, and failure conditions are explicit.
Frame
Define the security question and the decision it is meant to support.
Measure
Capture source, time, scope, coverage, and uncertainty.
Challenge
Replay, simulate, model, or formally analyze the claim using the method appropriate to it.
Operationalize
Carry validated evidence into a bounded product workflow without silently expanding authority.
Epistemic boundaries
Different evidence supports different claims.
Measured observations, simulations, formal results, literature-derived findings, and design targets are not interchangeable. Breakwater products preserve those distinctions so confidence does not outrun the method.
Measured
Observed in a defined environment at an attributable time and scope.
Modeled or simulated
Useful for reasoning and rehearsal, with assumptions and fidelity limits visible.
Formally established
Proved only within the stated model, properties, and assumptions.
Research collaboration
Bring us a security question that needs a better method.
We welcome conversations about cyber analytics, distributed systems, cryptography, trustworthy AI, and operational assurance.