The American Council for Technology (ACT) and its Industry Advisory Council awarded the Defense Technology Experimental Research Testlab its national award at a Washington D.C. meeting.
DETER co-director Terry Benzel accepted the Excellence.Gov award on behalf of her organization, which is funded by the Department of Homeland Security's
Command, Control, and Interoperability Division, DETER is a
partnership between the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute, the University of California
Berkeley, and Sparta, Inc.
DETER "provides the cyber security research
community with a testbed to conduct repeatable experiments
in a safe and realistic environment," per the description in
the program for the March 31 Washington DC Excellence.Gov
honors event.
The event also honored 19 other projects, chosen by a blue-
ribbon 25-judge committee drawn from a wide range of
government and industrial organization. More than 300
representatives of government and industry attended the
ceremony, which had as major sponsors Google, Lockheed
Martin, Unisys, Nortel, and VMware.
Dr. David Boyd, Director of the Command, Control and
Interoperability Division of the DHS nominated DETER. He
wrote:
Since 2000, cyber attack traffic has skyrocketed an
estimated 150-fold, and cyber threats pose an ever-growing
risk to national and economic security. The DETER project
targets the critical cyberspace challenges identified in the
National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace—the integrity,
availability, and reliability of networks across the Nation.
DETER core group. click on image for larger
view.
In order to successfully advance cyber security defenses
against computer network attacks—worms, viruses, and
distributed denial of service—the Nation needs an effective
way to evaluate new defensive network security
mechanisms. Today, these evaluations face roadblocks:
Lack of scientific rigor; the absence of relevant and
representative network data; inadequate models of defense
mechanisms; and inadequate network models (both the
background and attack traffic data). Network models
represent a particularly difficult challenge due to the
complexity of interactions among traffic, topology, and
protocols.
The DETER project is essential to the Nation’s ability to
address these challenges. DETER’s experimental testbed
provides developers and researches with an important
opportunity to thoroughly test new technologies intended to
protect the Nation’s critical infrastructure. …
The American Council for Technology (ACT) is a non-profit
educational organization established in 1979 to assist
government in acquiring and using information technology
resources effectively and efficiently. Working with all levels
of government, ACT provides education, programming, and
networking opportunities that enhance and advance the
government IT profession.
In 1989 ACT established the Industry Advisory Council (IAC)
to bring industry and government executives together to
exchange information, support professional development,
improve communications, and build partnership and trust,
thereby enhancing government's ability to serve the nation.
ACT and IAC work together to provide an objective,
professional and ethical forum where government and
industry leaders can collaborate on addressing common
issues towards a shared vision.
DETER awardees and sponsors: (from left) Karl Levitt - NSF, Jennifer Mekis - DHS, Anthony Joseph -UC Berkeley, Terry Benzel - ISI, Doug Maughan -DHS, Trent DePersia, DHS
 |
