SUNNYVALE, Calif., 5 March 2008.Real-Time Innovations (RTI) won a contract with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratories (AFRL) to research and develop a Data Distribution Service (DDS) standards-based system to scan network nodes for security vulnerabilities. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) effort will incorporate recent developments in active and passive network traffic sniffing, node security policy management, complex event processing (CEP), high-performance network data distribution, and data persistence. A demonstration of the technologies is planned for mid-2008.
The project, "Proactive Determination of Networked Node Vulnerability," addresses a pervasive need for improved tools to seek out weaknesses in network security before and during a security intrusion event. The objectives are to automate vulnerability scanning of network nodes, analyze the impact these vulnerabilities have on the network, and communicate the resulting information to other nodes and users for appropriate responses.
To address this requirement, RTI will integrate a number of features that will provide a substantial capability within a very short timeframe and with reduced cost. Following a common trend in agile product development, the project will take advantage of a combination of mainstream commercial products, open-source technologies and innovative research by select security partners.
Partners ObjectSecurity LLC and Promia Inc., provide experience in network intrusion detection and security management. Partners Coral8 Inc., ANTS Software, and SL Corp. are global leaders in commercial CEP, high-performance database management, and real-time visualization solutions, respectively. Several traditional prime defense contractors will also be involved in the test and evaluation phase to independently validate results.
The end result of this effort, if the system is selected for follow-on development, will be a robust, broadly deployed vulnerability assessment capability well integrated with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) vision for its next-generation Global Information Grid (GIG) network infrastructure.
This program is managed by the U.S. AFRL Information Handling branch within the Information and Intelligence Exploitation Division as part of the AFRL Computer Defense Immune System (CDIS) initiative.
