For Immediate Release
DHS Science & Technology Press Office
Contact: John Verrico, (202) 254-2385
Washington, DC – The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) awarded Galois, Inc. of Portland, Oregon a contract to create technology to defend against large and sophisticated Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. The $1.7 million contract titled “DDoS Defense for a Community of Peers” was awarded through Broad Agency Announcement HSHQDC-14-R- B00017 and will become part of the DHS S&T Cyber Security Division’s larger Distributed Denial of Service Defenses (DDoSD) program.
DDoS attacks are used to render key resources unavailable. A classic DDoS attack might disrupt an organization’s website and temporarily block a consumer’s ability to access the site. A more strategic attack makes a key resource inaccessible during a critical period. Prominent DDoS attacks have been conducted against financial institutions, news organizations, providers of internet security resources, and government agencies. Any organization that relies on network resources is considered a potential target, and the current environment offers many advantages to the attacker.
“Protection of the nation’s network infrastructure is an S&T priority,” said DHS Under Secretary for Science and Technology Dr. Reginald Brothers. “In order to conduct daily business, public and private networks must be able to withstand DDoS attacks.”
Due to the massive size of modern DDoS attacks, medium-sized organizations face difficulties mitigating the damage if they act alone. . Recognizing the need for organizations to collaborate in order to withstand such attacks, the Galois team will develop a DDoS response solution based on communication software, deployed at multiple organizations, that lets them collaborate. The DDoS traffic details are shared through peer-to-peer software, giving the teamed organizations the benefit of mutual detection and a unified defense to block attacks originating from thousands of locations.
“DDoS attacks are increasing in both size and sophistication,” said Dr. Dan Massey, Cyber Security Division DDoSD Program Manager. “S&T’s Cyber Security Division has challenged the research community to not just address today’s attacks, but more importantly, to think toward defending against the possibility of massive attacks.”
With the success of launching this R&D project, S&T looks forward to securing the nation’s networks by defending against DDoS attacks.
For more information, visit scitech.dhs.gov/cyber-research, or email SandT-Cyber-Liaison@hq.dhs.gov.
###