Vencore Labs announces DARPA contract

Vencore will work on the third and final phase of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA’s) Wireless Network Defense (WND) programme under a $3.4 million contract announced on 19 December.

The programme is focused on developing technologies to protect wireless networks and the critical data that is shared over them against malicious attacks and/or technical compromises.

Vencore Labs worked on the programme’s first two phases, which were focused on technology development and applying these technologies to heterogeneous wireless networks that are relevant to the US military. Phase 3 will focus on validating these technologies on military radios and demonstrating their effectiveness.

This will see the company deliver a wireless defence framework designed to be robust in the face of attacks, with a very high accuracy rate, that imposes very little overhead on the network. Existing hardware and equipment will be incorporated. The solution will be applicable to multiple network technologies and be able to protect these disparate networks using a common defensive framework.

Petros Mouchtaris, president of Vencore Labs, said: ‘Protecting wireless networks against attacks so that critical information can be properly, securely and effectively routed is a complex problem that requires a deep understanding of the functioning of wireless protocols. Vencore Labs has decades of experience in working with these types of networks and finding solutions for the types of issues that they present.’