DARPA moves ahead with National Cyber Range project for advanced cyber security research

By John Keller
Military & Aerospace Electronics
13 Jan. 2010

ARLINGTON, Va. -- The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency
(DARPA) in Arlington, Va., is awarding multimillion-dollar contracts to two research organizations to build prototype advanced computing centers to demonstrate and test cyber security, defensive information warfare, and information assurance technologies.

DARPA awarded a $30.8 million contract to the Lockheed Martin Simulation, Training, & Support segment in Orlando, Fla., and a $24.8 million contract to the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., to develop prototypes of the National Cyber Range (NCR), which is to revolutionize the state of the art for large-scale cyber testing.

The National Cyber Range will provide an advanced computer and data networking laboratory in which experts can assess information assurance and survivability tools; replicate the kinds of large and complex computer networks that support U.S. Department of Defense weapons and operations; conduct several large cyber security experiments at the same time. conduct realistic tests of the U.S. Global Information Grid (GIG); and develop and deploy revolutionary cyber testing capabilities.

The National Cyber Range is DARPA's contribution to the federal Comprehensive National Cyber Initiative (CNCI), a secret multibillion-dollar project to build defenses for government computers against foreign and domestic hackers and cyber terrorists.