Bro-Intelligent Load Balancer Towards Terabit-Scale Cyber Security

According to a 2013 report published by FireEye, on average it took 229 days between the breach of a computer system and the detection of said breach. In order to effectively mitigate these breaches, traditional corporate border security needs to transition to a defense in depth cyber security posture. As networks get faster, such as the DOE ESNet and corporate datacenters such as Target and The Home Depot, it becomes more difficult to gain network visibility across the whole enterprise. The technology developed in this proposal will enable such network visibility, even on the largest and fastest networks available today.We have developed a scalable cybersecurity technology called R-Scope that at its core can inspect every packet transiting a network to determine where that packet came from, where it is going, and the type of communication it is carrying. This data can then be used to craft policy which can alert when anomalous events take place, such as the exfiltration of data (credit cards, personal identification, critical intellectual property, or even the latest movies) off premises to foreign computer systems. Through the Phase I and Phase II efforts, we engaged in basic R&D to address the notion of "performance collapse" in a network cyber security appliance. This R&D was then rolled into a commercial appliance offering using the Bra open source engine to provide cyber security aware network visibility. Our work addressed the core feature set necessary for a product and began the marketing and sales process to bring the appliance to market culminating with a few early sales of the product. The follow-on funding will be used to complete commercialization, enabling the product leapfrogging across the "market chasm" where many highly technical products die because of their inability to address the larger market beyond the early adopter. We will address product areas that include customer usability, enterprise corporate fit and competitiveness that overall lead us to enabling the product to fit well in a corporate environment and allows us to scale our support of the product as we grow. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits This work will enhance collaborative science, making more efficient and secure use of existing and future networking technologies that will help usher in scientific breakthroughs. At the same time, it will help protect corporate and government datacenters from malicious activity that costs the economy millions of dollars.