The Air Force is seeking ways to protect tactical IP networks.
Traditional network defense is reactive, which means the defenders are always one step behind the attackers, who can choose the time, place and method of attack. So the Air Force wants “new computer network defense technologies which can reverse this asymmetry that favors our adversaries,” said the Air Force research proposal
Cyber hardening and cyber agility techniques for avoiding cyber attacks are among the top goals, according to the notice.
Resource: Read the SBIR
Cyber hardening eliminates vulnerabilities in networking protocols and services
“For instance, a network routing protocol that lacks authentication is vulnerable to spoofing attacks that can subvert the operation of the network,” the Air Force noted. “For this case, cyber hardening would involve incorporating the necessary protocol message authentication techniques.”
Cyber agility relies on multiple defensive techniques to enable a network to evade attack. “For instance, IP address and port hopping between communicating end points on a network may be used to obviate attempts by an adversary to track and target critical systems. Similarly, cyber agility techniques can be used to dynamically reconfigure the posture of a system upon the onset of an attack to enable the system to fight through the attack and provide continued uninterrupted operations.”
