DHS S&T enlists Cyber 20/20 to enhance cyber security capabilities for financial services

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science & Technology Directorate (S&T) has awarded Cyber 20/20, Inc. a contract to enhance the capabilities of existing cybersecurity tools to detect and respond to malicious cyber-security attacks on financial institutions.

Awarded under the first phase of DHS S&T’s Silicon Valley Innovation Program (SVIP), the grant will provide Cyber 20/20 with an initial $200,000 grant to develop proof of concept for the proposed technology.

The project will aim to enhance the ability of the Trained Using Runtime Analysis from Cuckoo Outputs (TURACO) open-source sandbox that enables security analysts to force new applications to be run in isolation to contain and analyze malware attacks. Currently, TURACO pairs machine learning and existing capabilities to identify, analyze and anticipate malware attacks.

“As malware evolves, so must the technology we use to defend financial services networks,” Greg Wigton, program manager for the Next Generation Cyber Infrastructure Apex program, said. “Using sandboxes to predict and prevent attacks increasingly has become popular over the past decade. Cyber 20/20 plans to create a next-generation open-source sandbox that leverages machine learning to adapt to evolving threats.”

The SVIP makes up to $800,000 in funding available to participating companies over four phases.