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Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) and three cybersecurity research universities, Carnegie Mellon University, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Purdue University, announced today the progress they have made in developing solutions for pressing cybersecurity threats.
This industry/academia partnership was launched in December 2009 to advance research, facilitate collaboration among the nation’s top scientists and accelerate solutions to fight the rapidly evolving cyber threats.
At a recent briefing at the National Press Club, Dr. Robert Brammer, vice president and chief technology officer of Northrop Grumman Information Systems, said the threats continue to increase in both number and sophistication.
“Our research is significant in that it is directly focused on major issues impacting our customers’ needs and is already achieving some significant results,” he said. The collaboration among our industry professionals and the university researchers has been exciting, and I look forward to the consortium being a significant factor in the race to counter the growing threats in cyberspace.”
Some of the progress Brammer talked about included developing new approaches to improve cloud computing security and new ways for organizing and evaluating experiments performed on cyber test ranges.
“The consortium has also developed automatic techniques to analyze computer software designs to look for potential cybersecurity vulnerabilities,” Brammer said. “If successful on a large-scale, these techniques will significantly improve software security for customers while reducing the time and cost it takes to develop, certify and accredit these systems for government operations.”
The Northrop Grumman Cybersecurity Research Consortium members maintain laboratories and centers recognized around the world for their research in cybersecurity. They include 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.
“The Cybersecurity Research Consortium, led by Northrop Grumman, plays a very important role in fostering the development of new security technologies in academia and facilitating their transition to real-world use,” said professor Ronald L. Rivest, lead of MIT’s CSAIL. “We believe that such industry/academic collaboration is essential for successful action against the increasingly serious and effective cyber-attacks we are witnessing today.”
