DOD Grant to Help Pilot Cybersecurity Project
The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded nearly $2 million to the Indiana University Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research and the Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center. The funding will allow the two entities to continue work on their Principles-based Assessment for Cybersecurity Toolkit, or PACT.
IU says the award will fund the real-world piloting of PACT, which is used to assess the toughest cybersecurity problems. It provides cybersecurity professionals with guidance to develop custom cybersecurity solutions for unusual environments.
"The Department of Defense has cybersecurity concerns of critical importance, and we’re happy to work alongside our counterparts at Crane to devise tools and methods to protect national security interests," said Von Welch, director of the CACR. "PACT builds on several years of collaboration among our institutions, and we’re happy to mature this relationship to this next level."
PACT was developed by Craig Jackson, chief policy analyst at the CACR, who says the long-term vision for the toolkit is to "evolve an increasingly standardized, usable, and refined approach to assessment with a growing set of tools, a growing community of PACT Assessment Facilitators, and a network of highly-skilled cyber experts."
The announcement follows the renewal of the cooperative research and development agreement between the CACR and NSWC Crane.