The Chief Security Officer Problem

Abstract: This paper presents the chief security officer (CSO) problem, defines its scope, and investigates several important research questions related within the scope. The CSO problem is defined based on the concept of secrecy capacity of wireless communication channels. It is also related to the chief Estimation/Executive Officer (CEO) problem that has been well studied in information theory. The CSO problem consists of a CSO, several agents capable of having two-way communication with the CSO, and a group of eavesdroppers. There are two scenarios in the CSO problem; one in which agents are not allowed to cooperate with one another and the other in which agents are allowed to cooperate with one another. While there are several research questions relevant to the CSO problem, this paper focusses on the following and provides answers: (1) How much information can be exchanged back and forth between the CSO and the agents without leaking any information to the eavesdroppers? (2) What is the power allocation strategy that the CSO needs to follow so as to maximize the secrecy capacity? (3) How can agents cooperate with one another in order to increase the overall secrecy capacity?.