Five research organizations were awarded separate contracts totaling $11.6 million to develop new methods to identify and attribute Network/Internet-scale Disruptive Events (NIDEs) by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T).

Here are the details:

• Center for Applied Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA), University of California, San Diego, $3,000,000 for Internet Outage Detection and Analysis -Next Phase (IODA-NP): Multi-source Real-time Detection of Macroscopic Internet Connectivity Disruption—CAIDA will work to define a  framework to perform near real-time monitoring of the internet for NIDEs.
• SecureLogix, San Antonio, Texas, $1,876,247 for NIDE Detection in Public Safety and Communication Networks—SecureLogix’s effort will focus on making the nation’s 911 and other public safety and emergency communications systems more secure from NIDEs.
• Two Six Labs, Arlington, Virginia, $3,220,125 for Attribution and Research of Characteristics Underlying Disruptive Event Scenarios (ARCUS) —Two Six Labs will develop a framework to detect NIDEs within a network or system.
• University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute (USC-ISI), Los Angeles, California, $2,842,232 for Detecting, Interpreting, and Validating from Outside, In, and Control, Disruptive Events—USC-ISI is working to develop root-cause attribution of NIDEs through an understanding of multiple levels of the network stack.
• The University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand, $672,961 for Recording Router Reboots for Rating Reliability and Reachability—The University of Waikato will develop a system for internet-scale monitoring of router-reboots and their impact on Border Gateway Protocol routing and reachability.

S&T’s newly established Predict, Assess Risk, Identify (and Mitigate) Disruptive Internet-scale Network Events (PARIDINE) project is working to develop innovative technologies that will provide systems and capabilities to identify, classify, and report NIDES.

[Image courtesy: Department of Homeland Security]