Identification of Critical Resources and Cyber Threats in the Physical Domain

With the increase in net-enabled warfare, network security will continue to be of critical importance to the DoD. Efforts to protect against intrusions have resulted in effective detection systems that can aid in network protection. However, another type of serious threat is the attack on the physical infrastructures that provide these critical network capabilities. One of the key challenges in addressing this problem is identifying the physical infrastructure on which a virtual network depends. Characterizing these elements and mapping them to cyberspace assets cannot be done solely through existing network tools. OSD is seeking techniques to analyze this data and automatically identify vulnerabilities, points of failure, or other critical risk areas. In response to this need, Edaptive Computing, Inc. (ECI), proposes DECYPHER, a research and development effort that will result in a unique and commercially viable innovation to assessing cyber vulnerabilities from physical infrastructure analysis. Our proposal specifically addresses the stated requirements of the solicitation; we will develop and deploy tools, methods, and models for detecting threats to cyber systems through the physical domain. The resulting capabilities will result in new techniques for analyzing and visualizing physical risks and their impacts on critical systems.