DARPA fuels security R&D

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The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has awarded four contracts

to Secure Computing Corp., pumping more than $6 million into research and

development for secure networks, DARPA announced Monday.

The first three contracts are for programs within DARPA's Third Generation

Security Initiative, which is aimed at developing advanced mechanisms to

secure the Defense Department's critical infrastructure systems against

cyberattack. The three contracts cover:

* An autonomic distributed firewall. Such a firewall is encoded to block

automated attacks, enabling decision-makers to focus attention on sophisticated,

strategic attacks on networks.

* An intrusion-tolerant server infrastructure. An intrusion-tolerant

system continues to functions correctly even in the face of an attack.

* The Releasable Data Products Framework. The RDPF applies technologies

that work together to produce a high-assurance environment for the production

and release of data products.

The fourth contract is for secure high-performance virtual private networks,

a program to design secure VPNs running over high-bandwidth network connections.

Secure Computing plans to transfer much of the technology the company

will develop for DARPA into new and existing products offered to the commercial

market. The first phase of this technology transfer is expected to be delivered

by the end of this year.