SiCore moves forward in project to provide trusted computing for avionics embedded computing

Nov. 14, 2017
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB, Ohio – Trusted computing experts at SiCore Technologies Inc. in Farmingdale, N.Y. are pushing forward with a project to safeguard military avionics, embedded computing, and other weapons systems technologies from computer hackers and other cyber security threats.
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB, Ohio –Trusted computing experts at SiCore Technologies Inc. in Farmingdale, N.Y. are pushing forward with a project to safeguard military avionics, embedded computing, and other weapons systems technologies from computer hackers and other cyber security threats.

Officials of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, announced a $47.9 million contract modification to SiCore last week for the Avionics Vulnerability Assessment, Mitigations, and Protections (AVAMP) program.

This project seeks to investigate and develop methodologies, tools, techniques, and capabilities to identify susceptibilities and mitigate cyber vulnerabilities of avionics systems.

SiCore and Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., won contracts in March 2016 for the first phase of the AVAMP program to focus on embedded computing system cyber security technologies involving vulnerabilities from physical, remote, and supply chain access.

Related: Lockheed Martin to provide cyber security and data integrity for Navy C-130T aircraft avionics

The program's scope includes manned and remotely piloted vehicles; on-board intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) systems; munitions; and any equipment, component, or subsystem that could compromise Air Force weapons.

U.S. military avionics cyber security technologies developed in the AVAMP program should be able to interface and interoperate with anti-tamper and open-systems avionics architectures and apply to a wide-range of aircraft that operate in contested environments involving electronic warfare (EW) systems, space systems, and mobile devices.

For this project Air Force researchers want to develop automated tools to support avionics vulnerability assessments; automated reverse engineering, program understanding, and software assurance tools to identify and detect weaknesses in avionics; malware detection tools and countermeasures; and techniques to detect, respond, and adapt to never-before-seen types of cyber attacks.

On this contract modification SiCore will do the work at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, and should be finished by March 2023. For more information contact SiCore Technologies online at www.sicore-tech.com, or the Air Force Research Laboratory at www.wpafb.af.mil/afrl.

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John Keller | Editor

John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.

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