Air Force lab to build intrusion-detection system

The Rome Air Force Research Laboratory last month tapped Litton/PRC Inc. to build a system that will collect information on cyberattacks or other unauthorized users throughout the Air Force as part of a Defense Departmentwide effort to stem the increasing number of intrusions into DOD computer systems.

The development of an automated intrusion-detection system, which will become part of a larger DOD system to detect and gather data on computer intrusions, is the first task order under the Defensive Information Warfare Technology Applications contract, awarded to Litton/PRC last month.

Under the four-year, $19.6 million contract, the systems integrator also will offer other information security solutions, including vulnerability and risk assessment, automated warning and response, and forensics.

The contract is DOD's response to a directive issued by President Clinton last year, known as Presidential Decision Directive 63, which called on federal agencies to develop a plan and systems to protect the computer systems that are critical for agencies to carry out missions.

The Automated Intrusion Detection Environment (AIDE), the first project, will collect information from individual intrusion-detection systems throughout the Air Force to deposit into a central system.

The data will be pulled together at local, regional and global levels to generate easily understood reports for administrators on issues such as similar attacks at several sites. The AIDE is a joint effort between the research lab's Information Directorate and the Defense Information Systems Agency.