Our twofold approach is based on both our research, and the efforts of cyber-security scientists and technologists who use DeterLab as a scientific facility for cyber-defense invention and evaluation. In our research program we develop novel methods, technology and infrastructure for cyber-security experimenters to employ in creating and testing new security technologies. Our research results are put into practice in DeterLab, where members of our research community -- spanning over 150 institutions from a dozen countries -- use our advanced experimentation facilities. From their work, we learn how our research results work in practice to help DeterLab experimenters prove the effectiveness of their security innovations.
 
DeterLab provides unique, real-world capability to research, develop, discover, experiment on and test cyber-defense technology.  Approved users can access DETER’s advanced resources and tools, and perform the repeated, verifiable experiments that are critical to true scientific research.

DETER is funded by the Department of Homeland Security, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Defense.  The DETER research team at USC ISI and U.C. Berkeley is also supported by more than 20 collaborators, including major universities, technology research labs, and corporations engaged in cyber-security research.
 
DETER is led by founder and Principal Investigator Terry Benzel and by ISI Director of Computer Networks John Wroclawski. DETER staff activities include research work in the several areas of DETER’s research program, technology developments to enhance DeterLab, technical operations of DeterLab facilities, and support of the DeterLab community of experimenters and educational users. Over the course of the project’s history since inception in 2003, the DeterLab community has grown to include over 2000 researchers, businesses, educators and other constituencies in the security science, technology, and policy communities.

With research, DeterLab operation, education, and community support, DETER seeks to transform cyber security research into a rigorous experimental science, by creating the advances in methods and technologies for verifiable experiments in a realistic test environment, and by making those advances widely available to foster rapid growth in  research activity and results.<
 
In practice in DeterLab, DETER enables experimenters to share data, lab set-up, software and tools, experimental procedures, results, and other information that should enable new experimenters to stand on their predecessors’ shoulders, rather than start at ground level for every new project.
 
With growing experience in repeatable, verifiable experimentation and testing, the DETER team and the DeterLab community are increasingly engaged in the experimental science of cyber-security – the methods and practices needed to expand and accelerate the scientific work for creating the technologies needed for new cyber-defenses.