Cyber-security is critical to protecting Army systems from sophisticated attacks on military networks in the face of ever increasing importance of cyber systems.

The US Army Research Laboratory (ARL) has established a Collaborative Research Alliance (CRA), which will include an alliance of ARL, US Army Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Centre, academia and industry researchers to explore the basic foundations of cyber science issues in the context of Army networks.

A cooperative agreement was awarded to the Consortium on September 20, led by Pennsylvania State University, and including Carnegie Mellon University, Indiana University, the University of California at Davis, and the University of California Riverside. The Army will fund the alliance for five years with an optional five-year renewal at $3.3 million to $5.2 million annually.

“The CRA gives us an opportunity to jointly advance the theoretical foundations of a science of cyber-security in the context of Army networks. Such a science will eventually lead to network defence strategies and empirically validated tools. Substantial interactions and staff rotations between domain experts and scientists across the consortium and ARL will be vital to enable the joint research that will ensure the success of the programme,” said Dr Ananthram Swami, who was recently announced as the Collaborative Alliance Manager, ARL, for the cyber-security CRA.