By Calvin Biesecker
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) last week awarded seven contracts for engineering plans for a National Cyber Range (NCR) that would be used to test and validate advanced cyber research technologies.
The ultimate goal is the creation of a sophisticated and comprehensive testbed that will be able to assess “a network’s ability to defend against a wide variety of cyber attacks,” a DARPA spokeswoman said.
The awardees and their respective amounts are: SPARTA, Inc., $8.6 million; Johns Hopkins Univ. Applied Physics Laboratory, $7.3 million; Lockheed Martin‘s [LMT] Simulation, Training and Support business, $5.4 million; BAE Systems, Information and Electronic Systems Integration, $3.3 million; SAIC [SAI], $2.8 million; General Dynamics [GD], Advanced Information Systems, $1.9 million; and Northrop Grumman [NOC], Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Systems, $344,097.
“The National Cyber Range is the perfect job for DARPA because we understand the importance of establishing the fundamentals of science and technology,” Michael VanPutte, DARPA program manager, said in a statement. “Through careful observation, measurement and analysis, the National Cyber Range will develop realistic, quantifiable assessments of our nation’s cyber research and development technologies.” He also says the Cyber Range will provide vision for new computer security research directions.
Work under Phase I will last eight months during which the contractors will refine their initial conceptual design of the NCR, develop a detailed engineering plan and system demonstration plan, and form concepts of operations, a DARPA spokeswoman said. That work is meant to allow the government to determine that the contractor’s approach is feasible and that the contractor has a credible and affordable approach to reduce system risk within the planned schedule, she said.
Following Phase I, DARPA could initiate a second phase with a critical design review and a third phase to develop the full-scale NCR and begin conducting tests.
DARPA received 12 bids for the Phase I awards.