Nothrop Grumman forms cyber consoritium

Federal contractor Northrop Grumman announced a Cybersecurity Research Consortium Tuesday morning that will combine its own research expertise with that of Carnegie Mellon, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Purdue University to develop solutions to counter cyber threats.

"We will perform collaborative research in critical areas of cyber, and transfer results to the operations of our major customers," said Dr. Robert Brammer, vice president for advanced technology in Northrop Grumman's information systems unit.

The five-year program will include 10 projects focusing on areas of hardware and software security, privacy, simulation of computer attacks and defenses, and protection of the nation's critical infrastructure. Research will take place at laboratories and centers located across the country, including Carnegie Mellon's CyLab, MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, and Purdue's Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security. Brammer said that Northrop will invest millions of dollars per year in these projects, though he did not give a specific amount.

For example, one research project underway by CyLab seeks to develop techniques for finding new computer bugs, prioritizing those by their potential for being exploited, and safely distribute patches; another project at CERIAS will find ways to detect and defend against attacks in 'cloud-like' distributed systems. Any products developed through the consortium will be the intellectual property of the individual members involved in the associated project.

No federal agencies are among the members of the Consortium, though Brammer expects federal government and others in industry to participate as partners in various research efforts.

"The problems have been anticipated, said Dr. Gene Spafford, executive director of CERIAS. "Unfortunately, many warnings have not been taken serious by government and much of industry, [and] problems have been addressed after they've occurred."

Limited resources often cause those in academia to compete against each other rather than working together to solve problems, he added.

"That's an aspect of this Consortium that is most gratifying - we're able to work together."